BARBARA BENISH

For many years, my art has invoked systems of water-- oceanic, lentic, and riparian-- as echoing connectors of human life. But more than that, "water is life", as the Lakota expression sings: "mni wiconi". In 2020-22 the work explored the theme  of the River Styx: how it could translate into a contemporary story of the death of our water systems, induced by human indulgence and neglect. Where once was Charon, bringing the dead across the River to the other side, now is the water itself, poisoned, as predicated in the Styx legend.

​Invited by the alternative space, Pluto Gallery, near Bonn on the Rhine River in Germany, I created a river walk with students and locals to address the waterway and celebrate it's history. Directly present out the gallery windows, flowing through Bonn towards the North Sea,  named "Renos" by the ancient Celts, it has since Roman times been one of the major transportation routes, and continues until this day to carry major shipping cargo across the European continent. This has resulted, in the 20th century, of the river becoming home to one-fifth of the world's chemical manufacturing plants, as it's geographical axis made coal, then oil, transportation easily transportable. Today, over 6000 toxic substances have been identified floating in the waters of the Rhine. Due to a defining environmental disaster in 1986, when a fire exploded a chemical warehouse in Basel, Switzerland, turning the entire river red and lighting it on fire, governments paid attention and made some changes. 

This series of drawings and paintings directly reflect the 'body burden' of chemicals now present in other life forms, including humans, due water pollution.