THE WATER COLLECTOR
(HARVESTING STRUCTURE NO.4)

2022-2023
520 x 900 x 500cm

Metallic enamel buckets, aluminium, steel, inox, water filtering system, hydraulic engine, floating devices.

The Water Collector is a public work, installed on the shore of the Danube River in Tulcea, Romania. It is part of a sculpture memorial dedicated to the romanian kaiak champion Ivan Patzaichin.
It is also a public fountain, providing fresh water from the river, through a high-performance filtration system and mechanisms.
Curated by Teodor Frolu and comissioned by Ivan Patzaikin-Mila 23 Association.

Ivan shows the inhabitants the value of water from a utilitarian perspective, but also as a means of coagulation of the community around water. The form of the installation was inspired by the design of traditional mill wheels, keeping the efficiency of rural innovation but transposed in contemporary materials, alongside current technology. The river wheel collects and transforms the Danube into drinking water, giving the community the taste of the source of life - water is an identity element that can bring prosperity and meaning. The collection of water is done at a slow pace, in sync with the great river, by rotating the 24 enameled buckets that remind us of the passage of time, the moments of a day and the process of drawing water from the well. On both sides of the kinetic structure, in a spiral, eddies drawn from hundreds of scales are formed, a pragmatic solution to shade the water reserve, but also an aesthetic one, with the symbol of the fish found in a stylized form. The fountain therefore becomes the place of gathering and departure in rowboats, kayaks, canoes, to the wonderful Delta of Ivan.