Lynn Hershman Leeson has been working at the forefront of technology and feminism for nearly six decades. In the late 1960s, her practice began incorporating a motif called the water woman, a silhouette of Hershman Leeson’s own body broken into water droplets. The image alludes to the phenomenon of women “evaporating” from too many spaces in public life (history books, executive positions, museum collections) due to external forces. At the center of Altman Siegel and Bridget Donahue’s collaborative booth of “Water Women” works are two recent installations that leverage the Aquapulse, a filtration system being developed for personal use in low-income countries where access to clean water is scarce. In both works, Hershman Leeson has connected Aquapulse prototypes to a small computer and bottles filled with water dyed to simulate harmful bacteria. (Swiss regulations prevented the importing of actual microbes.)
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