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$Recoleta Cultural Centre Exposition 2004 2003 Work I'm thirsty WATER SHAPES In Alejandra Mettler's work exists, since some time, a notorious interest in knit and wool, due to their collective and social meaning. Now, at the “I'm Thirsty” exhibition, she adds the water subject to those materials and means. A natural element loaded with symbols, an essential resource to any life form that is getting increasingly limited. The presented works are almost flat objects, generally made with wools of blue colour, and with polyester resin. Irregular shapes, of curve edges and different textures, depict the liquid element through spontaneous and free designs. On the hall walls, these "pieces" of water hang horizontally and became objects able to transmit the meaning (or in plural) that the artist wants to communicate. These objects are made in a way that escapes any formal concept. Everything seems product of a spontaneous manipulation of materials, as in response to spontaneous impulses, without previous planning. In this way, they represent a liquid mass of potable water that took a firm, but uncertain shape (all is possible in art), as any fluid. Water, has a double significance in almost every culture, religion and myth: source of life and purification. In the Biblical Flood, waters purified earth; water is the natural mean for Christian baptism. But fresh water as an element refer to other matters, serious and closer to us, as it represents, in the end, life; and his absence means death. We are at the beginning of XXI century, and this is a main issue to be worried about. Not long time ago, in the Water World Forum, in Kyoto, this matter was debated: it is a limited resource, able to be commercialized? Or it is a public property that must be at everyone disposal? In that Forum besides, was celebrated the International Decade of Fresh Water. All these concerns are consistent with other initiatives of Alejandra Mettler, such as her Argentinian Flag - Art in Action project, born in 2002. During months, hard-working neighbours reunited in community centres, neighbour organizations, schools, churches and squares, knitted cloths of thirty centimetres, to be later united to extend a big flag. Finally and once more, that work would be fractioned in blankets to help warm up the needy. The flag then became a coat to protect and embrace the vulnerable, and a solidarity symbol among the willing knitters. The "I'm Thirsty” exhibition seems to reaffirm, with different cloths and materials, the same aesthetic and ethic concerns. The difference is founded in the expressive, plastic and spatial form that was required to found, in order to realize this water exhibition. Jorge López Anaya.$

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