save!ing stories stored in water

Archiving collective memories through Berlin’s sewage

Marie Jeschke

Collectively used invisible systems generate collective images.

Collectively used invisible systems generate collective stories.

Save!ing stories stored in water is the result of the exploration of the hidden depths of Berlin’s water system: the sewage. By physically infiltrating these networks—using objects, cameras, and collected samples—Marie Jeschke sought to uncover the vast, unseen repository of information carried by the city’s water as it cycles through various stages. Through moving images and a glass container installation, the artist approaches the subject with both poetic sensitivity and utilitarian precision. She further continues her ongoing practice of underwater paintings, here produced in the grey waters of a historical location of Berlin’s sewage. Marie Jeschke leads the viewer through a hypnotising journey of water in its many forms: dirty, murky, clear, clogged, foamy, evaporated, burning.

Modern times came with modern ideas. Privacy and hygiene begged for a concealment of everything bodily, thus much of the sewage became hidden from the view. Invisible to the casual observer, yet ever-present, these systems bind the city together in a collaborative, living network. In this sense, water becomes a fluid carrier of “invisible information,” a kind of communication medium that holds and transmits evidence of human impact, from psychological imprints to physical pollutants. For Marie Jeschke, water is alive, both as an entity and through its constant symbiosis with the living organisms it harbors. It is, in its own right, a life form and a source of yet-to-be-deciphered testimony.

If water could speak, what would it tell?

The exhibition features new membranes that have emerged, among other things, in and alongside Berlin’s wastewater, a video work created in collaboration with Marcus Werner, and an installation that enables an immediate sensory proximity to wastewater.

The exhibition was realized with the precious help of Berliner Wasserbetriebe and LAUFEN