Hello, this is Janice Li, the Curator of this exhibition.
The exhibition is titled: ‘Thirst: In Search of Freshwater’.
She is now explaining the object you will see in front of you, which I will now translate into BSL.
At this stop, you’ll see a clay tablet from an ancient region once known as Babylon, now part of Iraq.
It dates back around 4,000 years.
On the shelf to the right of the display case there is a tactile replica of the tablet, which you are invited to touch.
The surface is covered in angular, raised bumps, indentations and markings – features of one of the earliest recorded writing systems from thousands of years ago.
This script used symbols – logograms – pressed into wet clay as a form of writing, and it’s known as Cuneiform.
This tablet is a fragment of an epic poem written in the Sumerian language.
This poem was called the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, composed around 2,100 to 2,000 BCE.
The poem is set along the Euphrates River, where two kings once ruled.
Downstream lived King Gilgamesh of Uruk, locked in conflict with a rival, King Aga, who ruled upstream.
Aga demanded that Gilgamesh command his own people to dig wells.
He even threatened to cut off their water supply further upstream, in an attempt to intimidate him.
This reflects an early example of conflict between people over water.
It seems our thirst for freshwater has long shaped the ways communities interact with each other.
Freshwater has been a core motivation for communities to come together, strategise, innovate and build, but also to draw boundaries, and, at times, engage in conflict.
Think about the feeling of thirst: your mouth and throat dry, your skin tighter around the temples,
the beginnings of a headache.
Beyond this is a sense of longing – a deep, urgent need for water.
It is a universal human experience, shared with most other living beings.
So, this exhibition, ‘Thirst: In Search of Freshwater’, brings together stories, objects and artworks across time, geography and culture, to explore freshwater’s role as the source of life
and an essential pillar of good health.
This exhibition is divided into five freshwater conditions: aridity, rain, glaciers, surface water and groundwater.
Each section examines how communities respond to these conditions in specific contexts.
There’s another story within the larger ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ – the story of the Great Flood.
It is about a massive flood that covers the Earth, destroying everything but
also marking a fresh start.
People often look to the water cycle – how water moves from clouds, to rain, to the Earth and back again – as a way of understanding the cycle of life.
We can learn from this cyclical movement, and from the ways people – both past and present – have worked together to make the most of limited water resources in ways that are sustainable.