Cady Bright 

182 Years, 11 Months, and Three Days 

Artist Design Statement 

 
Elevator Pitch 
My exhibit is titled “182 Years, 11 Months, and Three Days,” or the amount of time between when the 
design was created and when the Earth will likely run out of unpolluted freshwater water (in 182 years and 11 
months) plus when the population would quickly start to die off due to lack of unpolluted freshwater (three 
days following the initial absence of water). The exhibit is made up of a globe that is about two metres in 
diameter with a topographic surface that is internally lit up to show where the major sources of unpolluted 
freshwater water are located. The audience interacts with this exhibit first by being able to touch and rotate 
the globe, and also by selecting a date in the Earth’s history for the globe to present. As they move forward and 
back on the timeline, the amount of illuminated area representing drinking water changes respectively, 
showing how a combination of factors are drastically shrinking our water sources (what factors exactly will be 
explained on a plaque to the left of the slider). This serves to communicate that we should be working harder 
to protect our water sources - after all, a human can only survive three days without water. 
 
Audience Retention 
The main audience takeaway of this exhibit is hopefully a sense of urgency about the decreasing 
supply of unpolluted freshwater water on Earth - after all, running out of unpolluted freshwater by 2200 is 
kind of a big deal. The plaque to the left of the slider would provide easy access to important information 
regarding what is contaminating or otherwise making the unpolluted freshwater unavailable to us - for 
example, aquifers are being depleted to irrigate agriculture, while rivers are being polluted by acid mine 
drainage, and groundwater is being contaminated by leakage from stored oil/chemical/petrol containers. 
Hopefully, learning the contaminants and uses of this resource will instill curiosity about what we can do to 
manage it in a more efficient and responsible way.  
 
Story 
A human can only survive three days without water, and yet (mainly in first world countries), we take 
it for granted. Unpolluted freshwater is a waning resource, but it is far from too late to do anything about it. 
However, if we continue on this path of taking our water sources for granted, and even repealing regulations 
that protect water sources in the interest of business profit, it will eventually run out, and we will have no 
water left.  
I started on the creation of this project with politics, particularly an Obama-era regulation regarding 
the disposal of mine waste that was repealed recently by the Trump administration, in mind. I struggled for a 
while on how to make environmental policy interesting, before coming to terms with the fact that to most 
people, it just isn’t. However, if people could see just how quickly the Earth is running out of unpolluted 
freshwater, they might pay more attention to environmental policy and seek out information regarding the 
environment to consult when making political decisions. By combining engaging exhibits I have seen in the 
past with the idea of being able to see the water draining away, I came up with my current design.  
The exhibit seeks to address two things: one, the lessening supply of unpolluted freshwater available 
to the human race, and two, how each of us can help to make that lessening supply lessen, well, less. Through 
this lense, the exhibit then teaches about how water is becoming contaminated, what the contaminants are, 
how water is being used, and why this combination of factors is causing an increasing scarcity of water at an 
alarming rate.  
While it is unlikely that the audience will ever feel the effects of a shrinking water supply, they ​are 
likely to agree that water is a resource that needs to be used responsibly and efficiently. People are often 
surprised to know that tactics like cutting back on food that requires a lot of water to produce - almonds, 
cattle, rice, etc. - are far more effective than taking shorter showers when it comes to water conservation. Yes, 
the issue is urgent and needs to be more prominent to bring about positive change, but it’s also one issue that 
we’re ahead of the curve on.  
What’s important about this exhibit in particular is that it gives context to exhibits created by my 
classmates. Every exhibit comes back to the same ecosystem, the same resource of water. My project puts 
them all on a timeline of 182 years, 11 months, and three days, also known as all the time we’ve got. 
 
Target Audience 
My target audience is largely made up of adults who learn visually and kinesthetically, as the exhibit is 
designed to be interacted with by observing the globe and reading, but also touching and changing the surface 
of the globe. These adults do not need any sort of special knowledge to understand this exhibit, in fact, those 
who have special knowledge regarding unpolluted freshwater will likely know most of the information 
presented. It is by educating (or reminding, in the case of our special knowledge knowers) them about 
different factors that endanger freshwater that I hope to engage those who are moderately to very politically 
active, and encourage them to them to use their political voice to protect this resource.  
 
Interaction Length and Style of Engagement 
When within the Santa Rita Water Reclamation Facility, the audience would be drawn to the exhibit 
initially by the size and bright lights emitted from the globe - large, bright, shiny objects never fail to attract 
attention. They would then be engaged by the sliding mechanism that changes the image presented, and by 
being able to touch and rotate the globe. The information presented by just moving the slider back and forth 
along the timeline should be plenty shocking to entice the audience to read the plaque and learn more about 
what the exhibit was designed to teach them.  
The entire interaction should take no more than ten minutes, as the information on the plaque would 
be concise and simple. Because the nature of the interaction is visual and physical, the audience’s role is to 
observe, read, touch, and move the exhibit. 
 
Defense 
This exhibit is imperative to giving context to every other exhibit that might be displayed in the Santa 
Rita Wastewater Reclamation Facility, to put them on the timeline I talked about earlier. In fact, it even gives 
the Santa Rita Wastewater Reclamation Facility context - after all, it exists to treat water, making it clean and 
usable again. This interactive and aesthetically pleasing exhibit uses two different styles of learning to convey 
important, time-sensitive, and interesting information. The most unique factor of my exhibit is that, if nothing 
else, it asks for change. It asks that in ten years - or twenty, or thirty - that when we look at the numbers 182, 11, 
and three, we see a memory, not a ticking clock.