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Thirst: In Search of Freshwater Exhibition at Wellcome Collection

Welcome to the exhibition ‘Thirst: In Search of Freshwater’.

There are 11 stops in total. This is the first stop. 

This pick-up station has a variety of guides, including a large print guide and a map of the tactile floor line.

You can also pick up a visual story that provides information about the exhibition using images, symbols, and short written explanations. 

You can look at this online before you visit, or look at it onsite when you view the exhibition.

A sensory map gives information about where in the exhibition space there are displays with loud noise, bright lights or sensitive content. 

This is so that you can be prepared before you see it, or avoid it if you prefer.

There are 11 videos in total across the exhibition, which explain some of the key artworks in more detail. 

Each stop has a QR code you can scan with your phone camera.

When you do this you will be given an option of: BSL – just like this video, audio description, and, for those who have difficulty reading text, screen-readable text.

When you pick to watch a BSL video, you can adjust the speed of the video. 

Click on the Settings cog and then click on ‘Playback speed’. 

You can then choose whatever speed you want: the higher the number, the faster the video and the lower the number, the slower the video.

In the gallery, there is an exhibition called ‘Ice Records’, which is an audio work.

There is a screen with a BSL interpretation of some of the audio.

Turn your device’s WiFi on and connect to ‘Wellcome WiFi’. 

Tick the box to accept our terms and conditions, and tap the button to connect.

There is seating available throughout the exhibition.

If you need assistance, you can find a member of staff in the gallery space wearing a Wellcome Collection t-shirt – just like this person.

They are available to answer your questions and help during your visit.

The next stop, Stop 2, is an introduction to the exhibition by Curator Janice Li.

Introduction to access resources

Hello and welcome to the first stop of this guide to ‘Thirst: In Search of Freshwater’. In this stop I am going to explain how this digital guide works. 

There are 11 stops, ranging from around four to seven minutes long.

This first stop provides information about access resources. Please listen all the way to the end for the full set of instructions. To skip to information about the exhibition, go to stop 2, which is an introduction to the exhibition and a stone tablet of the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’.

Stop 2 is just inside the glass entrance doors, directly ahead. Note that the glass doors open towards you, and are quite heavy. The flooring inside the exhibition is brown carpet. Do let a member of staff know if you need assistance getting into the gallery.

In stops 3 to 11 you will also hear from some of the artists and subject specialists about some of the key works in the exhibition. This is combined with visual description of the artworks.

You have accessed the guide by scanning a QR code. You can also access the audio information by picking up one of the handheld players and a headset from the pick-up station on the wall, where Stop 1 is located.

A white tactile floor line is designed to support wayfinding between the stops. When you arrive at an artwork which has a stop, this is indicated on the floor by a grey square with raised dots.

You will find a tactile QR code and stop number within arm’s reach of the grey square. The QR codes can be found on black circular discs, 18 cm in diameter, with a stop title and tactile number in high-contrast white lettering. They are located either on the wall, on a freestanding label holder next to the work, or on the work itself.

If you need any assistance, there are three members of our team in the gallery at all times. They will be wearing a black Wellcome Collection top.

The floor line from the main entrance brings you to the aluminium pick-up station, which is on the right side of the floor line as you stand on it.

At the right end of this pick-up station you will find a screen with a BSL introduction, in the middle are the audio handsets and headphones, and to the right are shelves with several different printed guides.

A turquoise-blue, A4-sized large print guide includes enlarged versions of all the exhibition texts, a map of the floor line, as well as a list of all the digital guide stops. It has white symbol of an eye with a line through the middle on the cover.

You will also find a dark blue, A4-sized visual story booklet. This provides pre-visit information about the exhibition, using images, symbols and short written explanations. This has a symbol of a book on the cover.

There is also a light blue, A4-sized paper map of sensory elements in the exhibition, such as bright lights or sound. This has symbols with a nose, hand and an ear on the cover.

There is seating throughout the exhibition, which will be indicated in some of the stops. There are also folding seats that can be picked up just inside the exhibition entrance, to your right.

The tactile floor line finishes at the exit to the exhibition, just after Stop 11, in the last room.

The next stop is an introduction to the exhibition and the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, voiced by Curator Janice Li. With the pick-up station on your right, follow the tactile floor line to the tactile square for Stop 2, which is just inside the exhibition entrance.

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Gilgamesh and Aga Tablet, Courtesy of John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. Thirst: In Search of Freshwater Exhibition at Wellcome Collection

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.

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.

Curator Janice Li on the ‘Thirst: In Search of Freshwater’ exhibition and the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’

Hi – this is Janice Li, the Curator of this exhibition.

On the shelf directly in front of you is a 3D printed replica of an Old Babylonian clay tablet, which you are invited to touch. The original clay tablet, thought to be around 4,000 years old from present day Iraq, is in a recessed display case to the left.

The tablet is roughly rectangular in shape and would fit comfortably in two hands. The bottom section of the clay is chipped and worn with age. Its surface is covered in angular, raised bumps, indentations and markings in Cuneiform script, one of the earliest recorded writing systems, pressed into the clay millennia ago. They form a fragment of the Sumerian poem the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, composed around 2000 BCE.

In the story, King Gilgamesh of Uruk is locked in conflict with a rival king, Aga. Aga has threatened to cut off Uruk’s water supply upstream on the Euphrates River if Gilgamesh refuses to enslave his own people to dig wells.

I wanted to begin the exhibition with this object to illustrate how, since the very dawn of human civilisation, our thirst for freshwater has shaped our priorities and relationships with others and the land.

Think about the sensations involved in being thirsty; your mouth and throat are dry, your skin feels a bit tighter around your temples; the beginnings of a headache. Beyond this is a sense of longing – a truly irresistible, urgent need for water. This exhibition brings together a wide range of stories, objects and artworks across time, geography and culture, all tied together by this shared human experience.

The word ‘thirst’ in modern languages such as tešneh تشنه in Persian, tṛ́ṣṇā तृष्णा in Hindi and Durst in German is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root word ters-, meaning ‘dry’. Through this shared root, thirst is connected to land-related concepts like terra, territory and terrain.

By using thirst as a lens we can also extend beyond human experience, to environmental thirst – the needs of the land itself. Divided into five freshwater conditions – aridity, rain, glaciers, surface water and groundwater – the exhibition examines how different people and communities respond to limited freshwater supply in their specific contexts.

There is another story in the wider ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, albeit not on this particular fragment – the story of the Great Flood. A deluge that covers the Earth, causing destruction and ruin. This universal devastation feels all too imminent today in the context of climate breakdown, water mismanagement, and irreversible environmental loss around the world.

However, the great flood can also herald a new beginning. The water cycle is often used as a metaphor for the cycle of life – from clouds to rain to soil, it has the power to heal and regenerate. We can learn from the way it renews in circular rhythms, and from how people – past and present – have worked together to make sustainable abundance out of scarcity.

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‘Thirst: In Search of Freshwater’ an exhibition at Wellcome Collection. 'Before it’s gone', artwork by M’hammed Kilito. Gallery Photography: Benjamin Gilbert

This is M’hammed who produced this long-term photograph project called ‘Before it’s gone’.

M’hammed now explains about his project, which I am now translating to BSL.

I started this project over five years ago now to better understand the realities of life for the inhabitants of Moroccan oases, and how their way of life is changing because of the dramatic effect of climate change and destructive human activities.

The largest image in the top left shows a man called Mustafa, a guide I was working with at the time.

This is one of the many wells across the desert, and the nomads know them all by heart.

By navigating through the night, they use the stars as their guide to find these wells.

They do the same during the day, navigating with the sun.

They search for these wells to water themselves and their camels.

I think it is a very striking image to express the scarcity of water in these environments.

The image in the centre of the arrangement is an important one to show because many people don’t know much about what an oasis is.

So, this picture shows a large town made up of red buildings, nestled in the foothills of a mountain.

Between lush strips of date palms runs a water course.

For an oasis to be sustainable, it needs to have a balanced ecosystem.

I wanted to show this picture of the palm groves, and the residential neighbourhoods where the inhabitants live.

An oasis survives with just a little bit of water.

There is a mountain with a network of waterways that supports the oasis called qanat.

Under the sun, date palms create a humid microclimate and retain water in soil.

This creates an ecological defence against desertification and a refuge for biodiversity.

The inhabitants of these environments had found an equilibrium between agricultural production and the water available at the oasis.

The land in between the lines of date palms creates a space where other fruits and crops can be grown.

In the top-right picture, the woman in white works in apiculture, which means beekeeping.

She has a zip-on hood with a black mesh for visibility and bee protection.

Beekeeping is quite a longstanding vocation for a lot of women – in quite a patriarchal society, this is one way for these women to have economic independence and freedom to buy the things they want.

By talking to the inhabitants of the oasis, I started witnessing that they had very severe droughts over the last seven years.

In the four images towards the bottom left of the arrangement, you can see the impacts of these droughts: dead date palms against the desert, dried-up waterways, the desiccated corpse of a camel.

From the Ministry of Agriculture’s official statistics, we know that Morocco has lost two thirds of its oases.

Now you have people that are coming from big cities in Morocco to create greenhouses and introduce agriculture that is not adapted to the ecosystem – we’re talking about watermelon, avocados and bananas. 

One watermelon needs between 1,000 to 1,500 litres of water, and these fruits or vegetables are not even for local consumption.

It’s as if we’re taking water and we’re exporting it out of the country, to Europe.

We’re still talking about colonialism, imperialism and capitalism, and all these people, their homes and oases are now being affected badly.

Artist M’hammed Kilito on ’Before it’s gone’

When facing this work, there is a bench with light blue fabric directly to the right, where you can sit while listening to this track. The bench has a grey metal back and armrests.

My name is M’hammed Kilito, the creator of this work. On the section of wall to the left of the QR code are 12 coloured photographs of different sizes set at different heights. The largest photograph is a metre square and the smallest about 0.3 m. They show scenes of oases in Morocco and their inhabitants.

The photographs are a selection of works from my project ‘Before it’s gone’. I started this project over five years ago now, to better understand the realities of life for the inhabitants of Moroccan oases, and how their way of life is changing because of the dramatic effect of climate change and destructive human activities.

The largest image in the top left shows a man called Mustafa, a guide I was working with at the time. He is wearing a white gandoura, kneeling on a sand dune against a clear blue sky. He peers, looking down into a concrete well surmounted by a red metal frame, from which ropes dangle into the hole below.

There are many wells like this in the desert, and the nomads know them all by heart. They find them by navigating using the stars and the sun, to water themselves and their camels. I think it is a very striking image to express the scarcity of water in these environments. 

The image in the centre of the arrangement shows a large town made up of sun-dried red-brick buildings, nestled in the foothills of an arid mountain, bordered by lush strips of date palms with a water course running between. This was an important image to include, because many people don't know much about what an oasis actually is. For me, the traditional oasis is the perfect model of a sustainability and a balanced ecosystem.

An oasis survives with just a little bit of water supported by a network of the underground qanat waterways. Date palms create a humid microclimate and retain water in soil. This creates an ecological defence against desertification and a refuge for biodiversity. The inhabitants of these environments had found an equilibrium between agricultural production and the water available.

The woman in the image on the top right works in apiculture (or beekeeping). She’s adjusting her bee-suit – a white cotton overall with trousers reaching to her trainers, and sleeves reaching to thick leather gloves. It has a zip-on hood with a black mesh that enables her to see out while keeping the bees at bay. Above her, a wickerwork trellis covers the entire balcony and casts a crosshatch of shade on the wall behind her.

Beekeeping is quite a longstanding vocation for a lot of women – a way to have economic freedom from their husbands in quite a patriarchal society. Through beekeeping they have the economic independence and freedom to do what they want and buy the things they want.

By talking to the inhabitants of the many oases I visited, I started witnessing that they had very severe droughts over the last seven years. The impacts of these droughts are highlighted in the four images towards the bottom left of the arrangement: dead date palms against the desert; dried-up waterways; the desiccated corpse of a camel.

We know that through official statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Morocco has lost two thirds of its oases during the last century. Now you have people that are coming from big cities in Morocco to create greenhouses and introduce agriculture that is not adapted to the ecosystem – we’re talking about watermelon, avocados and bananas. One watermelon needs between 1,000 to 1,500 litres of water, and these fruits or vegetables are not even for local consumption. They are all sent to Europe.

It is as if we’re taking water and exporting it outside the country. We’re still talking about colonialism, imperialism and capitalism and how it’s affecting this population and their oasis homes.

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‘Thirst: In Search of Freshwater’ an exhibition at Wellcome Collection. 'Thirst/Trishna', artwork by Monica Narula of Raqs Media Collective. Gallery Photography: Benjamin Gilbert

There is a collective called Raqs Media Collective which has three members: Jeebesh Bagchi, Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Monica Narula.

They created a large artwork called ‘Trishna/Thirst’.

The word Trishna means ‘thirst’ in Sanskrit.

Monica explains about this project, which I am now translating into BSL.

In different parts of the Indian subcontinent, there are stepwells built underground to collect and store rainwater.

Even in small villages, you'll find tiny ones, but some larger ones are spectacular.

Spectacular and terrifying because they’re so deep.

They are often built in a square spiral, descending step by step to the water below.

At this stop, the work includes sculptural and digital elements, designed to remind you of a stepwell.

Projected onto them is a blue sky, as if you are looking up from the bottom of the stepwell.

The black outlines of planes occasionally pass overhead.

Four screens show different footage, offering different perspectives of stepwells.

One is a favourite of mine – a stepwell with a square and circle design.

The fifth screen shows black-and-white architectural drawings of stepwells, with snippets of written poetry appearing occasionally on screen.

The overall effect may be dizzying at first, but these fragments form a larger whole.

As one descends towards the water, desiring or needing it, you share the experience with many others who have walked these steps before.

Stepwells are also reservoirs of memory, marked by watermarks on stone.

We created this artwork to explore thirst as a trans-temporal experience – examining the sensations it causes, and how humans have responded to them through history.

Everything alive – humans, animals, plants – knows the same tasteless taste: the taste of water. 

Many stepwells are now dead, or treated as vestiges for people to visit.

In Delhi, they are often dry, covered over and uncared for.

This makes us think: if we don’t care for these stepwells – and more importantly, water itself – what does that say about how we value water that we need to survive?

In the future, water will be the oil of the future.

Imagine living in a desert where water is scarce, and you’re always thinking about wasting it.

Imagine being thirsty, feeling the dust and the heat.

How do we care for the environment and water supply so we have enough to survive – now and in the future?

Artist Monica Narula of Raqs Media Collective on ‘Thirst/Trishna’

To the right of the QR code for this stop, there are two large rectangular benches with a back, upholstered in a light blue fabric, where you can sit while listening to this track. When sat on the benches, the installation will be directly in front of you about two metres away.

Hi, my name is Monica, one of the three members of Raqs Media Collective, along with Jeebesh and Shuddhabrata. In front of you is a large, multimedia installation we created called ‘Thirst/Trishna’.

You can find it on the large low plinth opposite the QR code for this stop. The work has multiple sculptural and digital elements. The metallic sculptural forms evoke the form of the stepwell. These are subterranean structures emerging onto the ground, and these have been built across the Indian subcontinent to capture and store rainwater. Stepwells can range massively in size. Even in small villages you'll find tiny ones. But some of the larger stepwells, especially in desert lands, are spectacular. Spectacular and terrifying because they're so deep. They are often built in a square spiral, descending step by step down to the water at the bottom, which can be up to 100 feet down.

The back panel is covered in a silver step wallpaper. Projected onto it are fragments of sky, a patchwork evoking many skies, shot as if you were at the bottom of a stepwell looking up. Outlines of airplanes pass overhead, crisscrossing the world.

In front of that is the crowd of sculptures, and embedded onto some of those are multiple screens.

Four of these screens show different film fragments.

• A stepwell shot from above. It has square stone sides with sets of steps every few feet, leading down from one level to the next. The camera descends towards the bottom where a circular well encloses a square of green grass with a pool of blue water in the centre. I love this mix of square and circle in the design; it is a spiral pattern that connects to bigger stories – after all, spiral nautilus fossils have been found on top of mountains…

• The geometric architecture of the stepwell, the stone bathed in honey-coloured evening sunlight. Steps and colonnades rise up and down in mesmerising repeating patterns. 

• Lush green forests and rainfall, shot from unexpected angles. 

The last screen shows newspaper cuttings painted over with blackboard ink, on which are overlain white schematic drawings. Snippets of written poetry appear occasionally. Clay, rivers, bodies, a moon-well, and forests are all listened to, and spoken to. Thirst, and the possibility of its slaking, draw fluid connections from poetry, myth, folklore, considerations on climate change and the geopolitics of disputed rivers.

When you sit under the overhead speaker, you can hear Shuddha’s voice, reading in Sanskrit. My voice is the English translation – and what you are listening to is a fragment from ‘The Book of the Forest’, in the Ramayana, where Lord Rama’s wife, Sita, has been kidnapped, and the trees, the forest and its creatures feel an enormous disquiet.

The overall effect is perhaps dizzying first, but all these fragmentary elements come together to form a greater whole. A mosaic that helps you understand a relationship with thirst. As one descends the steps down the well, desiring, needing the water at the bottom, one is sharing an experience with countless others who have taken these steps before. Thirst is something that hovers above us all – a kind of haunting by life. Stepwells are also reservoirs of memory, etched in watermarks on stone.   

We created Trishna to explore the idea of thirst across time, across place. These emotions and sensations and qualities in human nature have existed across all our history.

All living beings eat differently, but everything that lives, slakes thirst with water; from amoebae to birds to leopards to schoolchildren, from pigs to monkeys to flocks of birds, to a woman waiting at the water’s edge at a stepwell, everything alive knows the same tasteless taste. The taste of water. 

In South Asia, access to water has reflected inequalities of caste. People outside caste hierarchy have often been denied access to drinking water from village wells. The first public agitation against the horror of caste was also a movement to reclaim the right to drink water. This was the famous ‘Mahad Resistance’, catalysed by Dr Ambedkar in 1927.

Sadly, many stepwells now are dead or treated as vestiges. The ones in Delhi are often dry, polluted, uncared for. This becomes a poignant reflection which connects how we think and live with what we need. The politics of water is going to be the politics of the future. When you think about being parched – when you will feel the dust and the heat of the land – our fragility will become inescapable.

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Walking in Wadis, Lora Aziz and Motanafas Collective, 2021 – 2025. Thirst: In Search of Freshwater Exhibition at Wellcome Collection

This artist is called Lora Aziz, who is also a wildcrafter.

At this stop, they now explain their artwork, which I am translating into BSL.

On the wall in front of you is a collage of around 50 items, including photographs, journal pages and tapestries.

These were created by young people aged 8 to 18, in a town called St Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt.

Sinai is a region undergoing rapid change and urbanisation.

This makes the transfer and preservation of local knowledge about plants critically important.

The elders holds the stories and ways of using plants, but if we don’t find ways to preserve these stories and teach younger generations, this knowledge could be lost.

As part of this project, I worked with the youth to explore new ways of documenting these stories.

The goal was to give people the tools to record the plants and animals around them, making them part of creating a living record of their home’s nature.

We used materials like notebooks, plants foraged – for example, palm leaves – soil, old scraps of paper and photography to teach participants how to make prints, tapestries and journals.

Tapestries are one new way for young people to document how they see their land and environment.

For thousands of years, a nomadic Arab tribe called the Bedouins has lived in Sinai.

However, it’s becoming harder, with the changing climate, global politics, and capitalism reaching every corner.

In these circumstances, when things are changing so quickly, we need to think about how to protect the land.

That’s why this creative practice is so important. 

It needs to be nurtured, shared and properly communicated.

People need new tools to think and talk about the land with the ever-changing climate and future.

To the right is a cabinet with four jars containing dried herbs from St Catherine.

Feel free to take the lids off and smell them.

One of them is Judean wormwood – this is what the Mountains of Sinai smell like, especially after the rain, or when the wind has shaken the plants and released their aromas into the air.

It’s pungent and sharp, but also sweet and addictive – the kind scent that lingers in your nostrils.

Every year in Sinai, by the end of winter, there is the wait for the rains to come.

At this point, there had been drought for many years, but that year it just rained and rained and rained.

Water flowed down the mountains, gushing down waterfalls.

Because of all the rainwater, the plants thrived.

The blue butterfly returned, and life was renewed.

That was during Covid, when a new variant called Omicron emerged.

Wormwood was used to help treat the symptoms.

This reflects the local belief that for every disease, nature can provide a cure.