Waterweek wins prestigious Nick Reeves Award for Arts and the Environment, for innovative water-based project

​Clare Whistler and Charlotte Still win prestigious environmental arts award for their work raising awareness of water issues using innovative projects

Waterweek runs a week of events each year to inform and engage people in issues of water and the environment. It was first run in 2012 in aim of educating people to enjoy and learn more about water, through engaging with different artists, engineers, ecologists and local residents. This year’s theme was Vital Water, which involved a number of different activities including community beach cleans and river walks.

Charlotte Still and Clare Whistler, co-founders of Waterweek said,

“Thank you to everyone who saw the jewel in this tiny and heartfelt project. It is such an affirmation of the artist practice of Waterweek and the work we and others have put into it, what we are trying to achieve has been recognised, understood and appreciated.

Waterweek is ultimately a question and a communication about water and if the winning of this award brings to others a curiosity for water in all its vitalness we will be thrilled.”

The Nick Reeves Award celebrates an artwork, project or field of activity by an artist (or group) that has contributed innovatively to CIWEM’s vision of putting creativity at the heart of environmental policy and action. The award runs every year and is organised by The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) and the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (CCANW).

Dave Pritchard, chair of the judges, said: “Waterweek is a great example of how sustained interweavings of technical knowledge, imagination and arts-led social engagement can empower communities to live in a richer, deeply principled relationship with their water environment”.

Two other projects won special commendations.

Sarah Cameron Sunde was commended for her 36.5/ A Durational Performance with the Sea, which is a time-based series of performances and video art works spanning seven years and six continents: New York-based artist Sarah Cameron Sunde stands in a tidal area and records it over 12 hours. Sarah invites the public to participate by joining her in the water and by marking the passing hours from the shore. Her work engages people on personal, local, and global scales in conversations about deep time and sea-level rise.

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art has been also been highly commended for their programme The Forest is the Museum. They are an educational charity that commissions innovative and meaningful ways for visual artists to engage with audiences in public spaces across Northamptonshire. They work innovatively with different organisations and individuals, facilitating connections between the rural and urban.

Find out more about the Nick Reeves Award here.