The Face of Water – An Exhibition to Bring Water to Those Who Have None
By Rudi Dundas for Blue Planet Network and The Samburu Project
Kristen Kosinski started The Samburu Project in 2006 when she was told, “If you really want to help women in Samburu, bring us water!” Women and girls were carrying backbreaking loads of water for hours daily, over dangerous roads, attacked by elephants and sometimes even raped or robbed by bandits in the bush.
Blue Planet Network, supporting sustainable safe drinking water projects in developing nations, has partnered with The Samburu Project to install a total of forty deep wells, providing water for 40,000 people in this drought stricken area of Northern Kenya.
When I was awarded an Adobe Foundation grant, with my partner, Chris Majors, in Drop by Drop Photo, to go to Samburu, we decided with Kristen, to create an exhibition of our photos. Blue Planet Network provided support and The Samburu Project organized “The Face of Water,” an exhibition of fine art editioned prints, which opened at The Manny Silverman Gallery in Los Angeles (http://www.mannysilvermangallery.com/news.html) in November of 2011, and has raised over $50,000 so far, for the benefit of The Samburu People (http://www.dropbydropphoto.com/face-of-water.html). Members of the Samburu community were present at the packed opening, as well as luminaries from Hollywood and the LA art world. The exhibition will travel to Pittsburgh and continue to other venues in the spring of 2012.
A story must have an audience. Because of :The Face of Water,” 4,000 people will have water to drink. Photographs from those who have much can change lives of those who have little.
