I had the joy of interviewing Charlotte Qin who is a water artist working to capture the emotions and spiritual essence of water through her paintings and her reciprocal performances where the audience engages in a connection with water. I was moved when I watched a performance of hers where glacial ice was brought in, and people spoke embodying the glaciers spirit, as the glacial ice melted.
She comes from a physics background, and integrates science and policy into her art works, seeking to educate people about the many dimensions of water and watersheds.
She writes on her Meeting of Waters project and organization site: “Water is at the heart of life, yet it remains one of the most overlooked crises of our time. Climate change, environmental degradation, and political conflicts have turned water into both a casualty and a weapon. Despite its fundamental role in sustaining ecosystems, communities, and cultures, the urgency of water issues has yet to fully resonate with the public. The complexity of water governance often keeps it siloed—separated across scientific, policy, and artistic spheres. But water is not just a resource; it is deeply woven into our histories, emotions, and faiths…. The name Meeting of Waters originates from La Jonction, where the glacial waters of the Rhône and Arve rivers merge—one clear, one sedimented—visibly illustrating the confluence of forces, ideas, and communities. What began as the artistic practice of an individual has grown into a movement—bringing together scientists, policymakers, artists, and cultural voices to reframe water not just as a crisis to solve, but as a relationship to restore.”
……………………………..
I was excited to connect with Charlotte, because I’ve been working on a number of water art and dance ideas, and interested in bringing together artists, who work with water, and also dancers who would like to do dance pieces around water and watersheds. I have a still emerging idea of collectives of artists and dancers working together to activate the restoration of watersheds. Drop me a line if this sounds interesting.
………………………………
Here’s part of the conversation I had with Charlotte, for full conversation check out the podcast.
Alpha : So after graduating physics, you went and studied art, is that right, or design?
Charlotte: I was doing this joint course between the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London. It was called Innovation Design Engineering. In my impression at the time, it was the marriage of art and science, except that everything is applied. We tend to think science and engineering, art and design, as two pairs, right? But in fact, our artists and scientists think more similarly, whereas designers and engineers were actually, you know, the similar family in terms of how they think. It was a very challenging course for me because I had to think about the users, think about solving problems. Whereas in my natural state, I would just be conceptualizing, trying to understand the system, and then going very deep in my thinking. In that course, I had to prototype. I had to think deeply about sustainability and why the world is messed up the way it is. And that was also when I found water. Not that I wasn't interested in water previously, but it around the same time I had kind of an environmental awakening. I realized I could feel the pain very deeply how water feels. And yeah, so I changed my direction completely. I was doing some cool technological projects involving water in my first year. But then until that awakening came and I was feeling the pain, I realized that water needed help, water needed healing. And it's not something that more technologies can fix. Or it's not something, you know, it's no longer, it shouldn't be used as a commodity again and again, especially by me, to further our egoistic creations, technologies, and crazy stuff we could make. You know, imagine, you know, the, there's so many incredible properties water manifest and we could apply it in so many different ways. But what's the point when the majority of the water bodies are suffering and are broken and needed help? Actually, people don't realize, right? It's the water's voice that needed to be amplified. So that was when I changed my project completely, almost failed my course in the end.
Alpha: How did this come about that you felt the pain of water?
Charlotte: I was in Spain. I went on a meditation trip in the middle of nowhere in Spain and then so I flew over from England. And then after three days, I think I just shed a tear at the end of the meditation and I just realized that, oh, wow, I was chasing after something shiny.
My soul was not quiet enough until then to know my purpose or to hear water. So I really had to quiet down from, you know, all the crazy things going on in London and also my course, you know, imagine this bling-bling technology design course in the middle of London where the Industrial Revolution first started, right? And at that time, I was trying to reinvent more technology to solve something.
Well, you cannot fix a problem using the same solution where that created the problem, right? So that was, I felt like that was what the course was driving us to do without making us critical thinkers first. So that's why like the whole designer engineer, scientist, artist complex came in because I felt like I wasn't taught in the course to think critically. I had to go back to my, perhaps my original training.
I might take a bit longer than most of my classmates to get to where I need to be. But I had to think clearly because I am not here just to resolve a symptom. I want to solve the deep, deep rooted issue, the societal issues. And when we talk about climate change and ecological crisis, it's all rooted in water.
Water is the first thing we need to look at. So that's something I strongly, deeply believed in until years and years later, you know, as I was in Geneva, I was an artist and advocate. I just suddenly realized that, wow, people, people, we speak about the same thing, but we don't see this the same thing at all. Like imagine, like at that time, I was before going to COP and all that, getting into climate change and all that stuff.
I thought climate was water, you know, like water is climate. It's like so obvious, right? But then I was like, actually, not, not everyone thinks the same. Like maybe 90, 95% of people don't think, don't see what I see. And I was really shocked. I think like more and more, it's happening more and more now when I realize, oh, okay, I've been just in my own head.
Alpha: How did you come about the connection of climate water? Was it through readings and books or articles or through your own thinking or what?
Charlotte: Just through my own thinking, you know, like, because I felt like because of my, okay, long story short. Fast forward from my masters, right? Finishing my master, I tried to live like a normal person, getting a job and all that stuff.
It didn't last for very long. Less than a year later, I found myself in the middle of COVID and I was just re-experiencing the pain that I was feeling for water. And I literally had to come out and become an advocate through my art because there were times and days I could only paint. And suddenly I get an exhibition and all that. And so I became an advocate. I was telling water stories through my painting.
That was 2020. And because of this connection with water and I, it's almost shamanistic, right? I feel like I can feel water's pain. I can tell water's stories.
I feel like water needs a voice. And I'm willing to do that through me, through my art. And then I was like, okay, let's bring it to the society. Let's collaborate with people who are also working in the water space. So that's when I slowly, more and more created this meeting of water's initiative that is making everyone do art. And so we tell the water stories through different voices. We personify water by imagining ourselves being water bodies, which we are. But we just kind of have to link it so that we can emphasize with natural water bodies that are some, you know, most of us think is inanimate. But to me, even scientifically speaking, a lake, a river can be a macro organism.
They hold so many different lives, right? We can imagine the river becoming, being a dragon, a Chinese dragon, right? The water creature that is a collage of so many different animals.
The snake, the turtle, the deer and the tiger and all the life that whose life depend on the river. So that's one way of seeing it. But for me, just like it is an organism which lifetime is much bigger than us. You know, it might have been sick for 30 years in our time. This river has been poisoned, has been deadly, but it might have been, you know, five minutes for the river itself. And it also has this self-generated mechanism, right?
If we leave it alone, stop the incoming root pollutions, for example. So that's kind of where I come from. I have this, just kind of like a personal connection with water. And then I remember going to the climate space this year. I discovered your article.
It was, I had to write something for, to kind of prove my point, right? So I was like, okay, I'm going to look into science and if there are papers who describe what I think after discovering that most people in the climate don't see what I see. And then I started just Googling water climate something in Google. And the first article popped up was from, from URF, which we both know as the, these common friends from Geneva were some regenerative olive trees. And so in his article, he was like a very, very article for laymen, right? But then in his article, he referenced Milan Milan. And I got in touch with him, discovering he's also from Geneva. And then he sent me the podcast from Milan Milan and also was your kind of water project.
So with your articles, I can, I found out more and more scientific research in the area and relearning to translate, you know, my integrate synthesize, you know, the scientific language into my, my understanding, I guess. So it's coming from both ways.
Alpha : In terms of the painting, is that something you grew up doing?
Charlotte : Yeah, yeah. So I'm always been doing art since I was little. My parents used to leave me like painting the walls, because we were moving. So I just like do those all around the house. But then it never was my goal to turn it into a profession. In fact, right now I don't see myself that way. I spent a couple of years following a normal artistic path. Maybe I spent one year just chasing after galleries, exhibitions, art fairs. But that year was like, okay, I'm going just after the business. But then I got very depressed.
I felt like that was very unauthentic. I felt like I cannot be a just like a normal artist or a normal scientist or designer, you know, I just can't fit myself into a box. But this year I've been really working on my nonprofit Meeting of Waters, which is an art project.
But it's also in this policy in the science space. I just want to work on water, you know, I call myself a water artist. For that reason, I don't want to limit myself into just one professional one tag. I can use my science brain. If I need, right, even though it's a bit rusty.
But it's still working somehow. And I can be an engineer one day if needed, you know, writing some software and stuff. Designer as well. So like I don't really want to limit myself into okay, I'm a painter.
I'm a designer. But I think, you know, all of it come hand in hand. My performance is very much coming from the emotions I feel for water. But without the knowledge, right, and the people and everyone's contribution. So like the performance is the meat of this meeting of waters, the nonprofit, but it's contributed by more than me.
People who come in from humanitarian and scientific fields who are also working on water. That's what makes it special. So it's bigger than me. That's why I created a new entity that is not, you know, a Charlotte NGO. But it's a meeting of different water bodies presented by human beings from different walks of life. Right.
Alpha: So you're doing a lot of different modalities. When you first started doing water art in the design schools, when you started with water paintings is that the form of art that you first decided to try and capture the essence of water?
Charlotte: Yeah. And at that time I was using a simple brush with Chinese ink. That's how I started Chinese ink. I think it was really a technique that dives into my ancestral roots. And it's not something I was trained in, but it just came out so naturally.
I did not know that, you know, everybody paints like that in China. Like in ancient time and modern days, I thought I was so special in Europe because I was just like, wow, I just have this wonderful technique and it just flows so well. Years and years after, just by practicing every day, it just feels like a meditation, you know. And then the brush stroke also evolves over time.
In the beginning it was very tight and then it becomes looser and looser and then it flows more freely. And then I continue to adapt it into different techniques. And obviously right now I'm working with mostly acrylic with Chinese ink as well. Like they're all always in liquid form.
So the black parts, they always integrate with Chinese ink or maybe when I'm doing the composition, I start with Chinese ink in black. But the idea is the same.
Alpha: You showed me that painting that you have [photo above]. When you started out, did it look somewhat like this?
Charlotte: This one is the same technique I mentioned, but then in acrylic ink. So in the background we're talking about the lowest part where it was painted in yellow and green. And then after this dried and I went with with the Chinese ink.
Alpha: Do you want to describe what's happening in this?
Charlotte: The scene is talking about regeneration and and the rain. It feels like a bird eye view and we are looking down from the sky. Seeing a wet land just below the clouds.
Well, maybe it's even invisible - this atmospheric river. But in this painting, because the water describing my art is not about water at all, it's more about motions, the fluid motions. So when we talk about the Navier Stokes equations as describing motions of the universe, whether it is dark matter or atmosphere or or lakes. The motion is like the fingerprint of God where everything is written in this formula. So when I paint water, it does not look exactly realistically like water.
You know, some maybe some European historic artist does it way better than me, but my, my water is about the motion. So here in the front. Front ground, you see the motion of the atmosphere. We're in a background. It's the wetlands.
Artwork called Dark Matter
Alpha: At some point you started doing these group setting events to where people are coming together around water, sitting in a circle. I saw that piece with ice on a platform that slowly melts, representing glacier melting. Do you want to talk about how you moved into this kind of form of art, what do you call that kind of artwork where you're involving the audience in the whole performance of it?
Charlotte: We call it reciprocal performance. So the performance because of the intimate setting in a circle and then audience being very involved energetically in the creative process. This performance is rather reciprocal that I am influenced by the audience in motion. And the audience is also influenced by, you know, the whole performance music, art, altogether, the perceptual experience was so much more than, let's say, an academic seminar or just the PowerPoint presentation. So this is what we want to emphasize, you know, the highlight of this methodology we bring in.
And that's why we call it reciprocal performance and artistic performance rather than a seminar. So we started it as a kind of a youth project. So at that time, because of this inner drive that I want to, I want the world to hear the voice for water, you know, I was around the time I could really cry. When I talk about water to just to a random audience and I would start crying as I talk about it. I think it's this authenticity touched people. And then I had many youth or grownups, no, we're all grownups, but I think in the policy space, there is a trend in a lot of governments and international organizations to involve youth in their process, whether it's a big international conference or just supporting youth in their projects for sustainability or climate change and all that stuff. I was involved in the World Economic Forum.
We have a youth initiative called Global Shapers. I used to work at a graduate institute for international relations in Geneva. I knew some of the students who were involved in water diplomacy. There were students more focused on water management, inter cross boundary water relations and all these subjects. So we formed this community around my art studio at the time. And that year, we received funding from a Chinese foundation. And we decided, okay, we're going to do two projects involving climate change. And the water bodies we wanted to involve was the glacier, one of the oldest water bodies on the earth. And then the oceans, somehow it's all shared stateless, you know, so we were all sharing the oceans. The ocean was very far from Switzerland but it did not really matter because we all carry the ocean in our bodies, the salted water.
So the glacier was somewhat very close to proximity and the culture of Switzerland. And it was the first performance we delivered. And it was also by accident on International Women's Day. We had this message of mother nature. It's also a female entity, right? Yeah. So that was the background story of this performance. And it was very much remembered. Even after two years, people were still talking about it because it was so intimate and the piece of glacier that was actually taken by one of our performers, an anthropologist who's also a mountaineer, growing up in Chamonix, the French Alps. So he actually went to the Swiss Alps to bring a piece of ice to the presence of the performance. And we also returned this piece of ice a year later because after this performance.
I also suffered this strong ethical struggle that was it fair that we took this piece of ice from a glacier that is already suffering just because we wanted to make a beautiful piece of art for our human purposes, right? I feel like we've done that so, so much in every sector without asking nature for consensus of what we do. So that made me cry for hours, the day after the performance, even though I was receiving all the compliments from everybody who was there. And I was really justified with my ethical code of conduct. It was like Olafur Elias and the well-known Danish, Icelandic artist, he brought tons of ice to the plaza in front of Tate Modern in London, watching mouth over 10 days or something. You know, that was a big performance also hits, I think during our age in the contemporary art. I was really justified with, okay, if I could make the impact, right, I would, I think it's okay. But then again, I think it was the same sensitivity that has been guiding me to create. I felt the pain of glacier again, and I just felt really a lot of regrets for what we have done. I spoke with with John, who this anthropologist who took the glacier and we made an appointment to bring it back to the glacier. So we kind of had this very, let's say, pagan ceremony and stuff. Let's thank the glacier for bringing the story to Geneva to an audience.
[Painting of the Glaciers that was made during the reciprocal performance. Made with the melted streams of Glacier de Pièce. This is the painting after when its mounted]
Alpha: So you had someone bring in a glacier water, and then you're all watching it melt?
Charlotte: So the performance was consistent of three movements. The first movement was, so we have three performers, they all spoke in the voice of glaciers. So imagine I am someone who studies the glacier, I deeply feel the emotions, seeing the, the leading life of this almost an elderly in a family in a water family, if you can imagine. So I projected my emotion onto this piece of glacier.
So I speak, my name is glacier, I am something like 700 years old and then I'm retreating, things like that you say. So the first part was just a brief introduction and the speakers coming from the region, you know, they are very emotional. And they just speak about how they've been guarding the water for Switzerland year after years, you know, where all the rivers all come from. And the second movement was the current state of glacier. It was the climate change coming in and the glacier was talking about how it's no longer receiving as much snow as before and the summer mountain is very rapid.
And things are not going great. And imagine that throughout these movements, the DJ is also playing and the sound was sent by the gesture of my paintings because my canvas was made into an instrument covered by conductive ink, Chinese ink. My body is also a circuit of conductive water bodies. So we basically connected a circuit and every time when I make a stroke with my brush, it sends a signal to the DJ. So he's mixing in a background as we are going through the movement, movement one, movement two, and movement three is about saying goodbye. The end felt like a funeral. And then the glacier was speaking that speaking like I am, I'm leaving but do not be, do not be sad. Live your life. Something like that. And then we're all projecting this emotion down to the glacier. And at that point, the glacier on my canvas melted so fast that it's covered already all of my white paint. And the music was playing was just very, very sad.
And, and then, yeah, and that was pretty much the end of the performance when we're just saying goodbye to the glaciers. It's almost like, you know, when you see an elderly in your family passing right we tried very, very hard to sustain the life for an extra day. Extra few days is possible with technology with money with everything we can.
Just like how Swiss event with all the money and technology they put blankets over the glacier, but they couldn't do more than that you know they're still going to be melting away. So, in the end, it was a raising awareness, perhaps self therapy, expressing those emotions and grief. And that was still early, early time. I feel like this year starting this year, everybody's talking about water. Every single body.
……
One of Charlotte’s projects as part of Meeting of Waters is Water Persona - “Water Persona boldly combines art and science to visually depict the critical relationship between water and climate. It is rooted in a wide range of scientific data and aims to illustrate the profound impact of water on ecology, human populations, wildlife, and industries. Ultimately, the project seeks to shift the focus from imminent catastrophe to fostering deep emotional and psychological connections, and providing actionable steps to care for the Earth by improving our relationshipwith water.”
…………………………………….
Share this post