Inaugural Water Fest Celebrates an Ecological and Artistic Force

Stony Brook's inaugural Water Fest was held on the Academic Mall and was part of the weeklong Earthstock celebration. Photos by John Griffin.The Stony Brook campus community took to the Academic Mall on April 22 to take part in the university's inaugural Water Fest, a campus-wide event was dedicated to exploring, celebrating and deepening our understanding of water as an ecological and artistic force.

Hosted by the Office of the Provost, the event was part of Stony Brook's annual Earthstock celebration. Throughout a brisk but sunny afternoon, attendees were treated to a series of informative poster displays, performances and art presentations.

"It's great to see undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, faculty, clubs and classes all represented here today," said David Wrobel, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "It's a great opportunity for our community to present and explore creative as well as research-based responses to the cultural and social impact of water."

"This is a great opportunity to look at who we are and what water means to the university, to our region, and to what we are trying to do as a university," said Provost Carl Lejuez. "It's imbued in everything we do and the challenges that we have. It was incredibly clear that this is exactly the right moment to do this."

Lejuez spoke of the importance of arts in the curriculum.

"We like to say Stony Brook is a STEM school, but Stony Brook is a comprehensive university that is stronger and better because of the foundations of the liberal arts and sciences," he said. "It facilitates the thinking of what it means to be a better person, what it means to understand what a good life is, what it means to question when the wrong things are happening, and what it means to inspire people to be the best version of who they can be."

"The humanities and the arts are creating opportunities like Water Fest for dialog," added Wrobel. "They're generating new knowledge and new forms of knowledge and engagement in issues that matter to our students and our society as a whole."

Sam Crane, a senior biomedical engineering student and member of the Seaweed Futures: Designing a Zero Carbon Exhibition VIP Team showcased research aiming to design and prototype a zero-carbon exhibition centered on seaweed, exploring its ecological, material and cultural dimensions.

"We use food-grade materials and we create bioplastics out of it, using seaweed from the Shinnecock kelp farmers," said Crane. "Not only is our project focused on creating sustainable, biodegradable bioplastics, but it's also to advocate for the indigenous voices of our community that don't necessarily get heard, especially because the Shinnecock nation is so far away from campus that some people live on Long Island their entire lives don't even know that they exist."

Junior fine arts and studio arts major Jan Melara displayed a music machine that uses water as a signal. Each cup had a pre-loaded sound that was activated by touching the water.

"This project is about making music using water, and using water as a medium as well," said Melara. "This enables you to record your own sound and make music with water and an input."

Junior anthropology and biology major Leia Letellier had a poster to spread awareness of microplastics and the damage they cause. She noted that plastic production has been rising steadily for decades, with microplastics formed from the flaking of bigger plastic.

"Even when you scrape a water bottle or wash clothes that have polyester in them, that creates microplastics," Letellier said. "They go into our water systems, they go into the fish that we ingest, and they accumulate in your body more and more over time, which is becoming a health issue. It's definitely something to be aware of."

Microplastics also harbor bacteria that can be harmful to humans, especially Vibrio, which can be transmitted by eating raw fish. Vibrio bacteria are a genus of bacteria that naturally inhabit warm coastal and brackish waters where salt and freshwater mix.

"It also accumulates in the air, so we are ingesting it at every moment," said Letellier. "The fact that it is bioaccumulating in the human body is already enough of a concern and something to keep an eye on as we go on. It's important to try to reduce the amount of plastics that we use so that the amount of microplastics that we have in our environment is also at a lower level."

"We have a long way to go to provide the support and the infrastructure to areas of our university that make our region and our society better," said Lejuez, adding that Water Fest was an opportunity to think about the role the arts and humanities play in that, and how they tie across disciplines.

"We're fortunate to be in a moment where our deans and other leaders respect the work that their colleagues in other disciplines do and genuinely believe that their work will be better if they work together," he said. "Today is our opportunity to build a tradition we can be celebrating 20 years from now."

- Robert Emproto