An Ode to Water: Werner Aisslinger and Tina Bunyaprasit

Did you know that 70% of the human brain is made up from water while cucumbers are nearly 95% water? Or that, 72% of the world’s surface is water but only 0.3% of this is safe drinking water? Or that water is behind the regulation of the earth temperature?

Water is something that we could not live without. Running through our veins and across our countries water is one of earths most precious resources. Celebrating the remarkable but often taken-for-granted resource of water, designers Werner Aisslinger and Tina Bunyaprasit have joined forces with the 450-year-old Bavarian glass manufacturer Freiherr von Poschinger to create collection co. connect to our planet. Released last week at imm Cologne 2019, this project aims to bring value to the simple act of drinking tap water.

The main object of the collection co. project is a monumental water dispenser that acts as a shrine to the water it holds. The blown glass vessel is designed and manufactured in such a way that the glass refracts and plays with light. The effect of this optical illusion is to make the water shimmer as if it were gold. Accompanying the dispenser is a series of tumblers that sit atop oak coasters of different heights, making mini-sculptures. The varied levels of the bases seem to make reference to the increasingly drastic statistics about how much safe water will be for consumption in the future and its unequal distribution globally.

With increasingly scarce safe drinking water, many experts predict that the next global conflict will revolve around access to water. Living in Europe, it is easy to forget the value of water. Water has the illusion of being infinite. One can conjure with the simple the turn of the tap. Werner Aisslinger & Tina Bunyaprasit question this complacency and hope to resensitize us to the immeasurable value of the clear liquid and precious resource, water.