
Color of Arts
Artist Lynn Parotti: Relational Undercurrents at molaa
Lynn Parotti is a London-based Bahamian artist and one of the artists at the Museum of Latin American Art (molaa) exhibition in Long Beach, Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago. Her art on display, Thirst II, is an update to her first exploration of water and its cost, Thirst I. Using new data, four panels extra panels were added to the art piece.
“This time instead of using 2009 data, seven years later, new data was sourced and four extra panels added keeping the amount of water (100 gallons based on 4,000 gallons consumption) and the currency (USD) constant.”
Parotti explains that sixteen cities are now represented in this second piece. They include “…war-torn regions like Damascus, the hosting of the Olympics (Rio de Janeiro), intensive overpopulation (Mexico City) and privatization, Moscow.” Since her Thirst I, most cities showed a substantial uptick in the price of water. According to Parotti, for example, Nassau saw a jump from $.63 (2009) to $3.41 (2016) and the city of San Diego saw an increase from $1.65 to $3.03.

Lynn Parotti (Bahamas / United Kingdom, Reino Unido, b. 1968) Thirst II, Clean Water Cost to a Consumer by Municipality per 100 gallons, based on app. 4,000 gallons a month usage in US dollars (source: Global Water Intelligence) / Sed II, Costo de Agua Limpia para un Consumidor por Municipio por 100 galones, basado en la aplicación. 4.000 galones al mes en dólares estadounidenses (fuente: Inteligencia del Agua Global), 2016 Oil paint, wax, lacquer and pure pigment on etched aluminum / Pintura de aceite, cera, laca y pigmento puro en aluminio grabado, 65 x 75 in. Courtesy of the artist / Cortesía del artista.
PalacioMagazine.com spoke with Lynn Parotti about her art piece, Thirst II.
The exhibition, at molaa until February 25, 2018, features over 80 artists with roots in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Aruba, St. Martin, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Barbados. Relational Undercurrents is supported by grants from the Getty Foundation as part of their Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a self-described “…far reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles.” Pacific Standard Time is being held at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California.
Lynn Parotti http://www.parotti.com
“The results of Global Water Intelligence’s 2016 Global Water Tariff Survey, published in October 2016, have revealed the world’s domestic water and wastewater tariffs increased by an average of 3.6% in nominal terms between 1st July 2015 and 2016 to reach $1.98/m3. The average is based on a household usage of 15m3/month measured in 384 cities worldwide. This global rise was outstripped by jumps of 12.7% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 10.3% in Latin America, where utilities were forced to respond to sustained drought conditions as a result of the El Niño climate pattern, and macro-economic upheavals which demanded water rate subsidy cuts,” GWI, UK.According to Circle of Blue, the price of water rose 6% in the 30 major US cities of its survey in 2015 which was up 41% since 2010.