Lucy + Jorge Orta (/Studio Orta)
Lucy Orta (1966, Sutton Coldfield, United Kingdom) and Jorge Orta (1953, Rosario, Argentina) founded Studio Orta in 1991. They enjoy international recognition with their installations, sculptures, performances, drawings and films that poetically tackle contemporary social and ecological problems. With their installation OrtaWater – Purification Factory (2005), they offered visitors to Global Imaginations the opportunity to draw water from the adjacent Zijlsingel canal and turn it into drinking water. The water purification installation is Orta’s constructive response to the growing global shortage of clean drinking water. As well as tackling the water shortage, the installation also raises important global water-related questions such as sustainability, the uneven distribution of wealth and food production. Installed in the Netherlands, the work gains an additional dimension, evoking the country’s long history and extensive expertise as the pre-eminent land of water.
biography & practice
Artists’ Dinner
8 September 2015
During Global Imaginations there was a new sitting of 70 x 7 The Meal. Since 2000, Lucy and Jorge Orta have organised dinners for local dignitaries and inhabitants in various places around the world. At De Meelfabriek, one hundred guests were invited to join a discussion at one of the tables laid by the Ortas, with plates designed especially for the occasion. The ‘burning issues’ addressed during the dinner have been gathered during a special student debate on the subject of global citizenship and water that took place the day before the dinner.
Lucy and Jorge Orta live and work in Paris, France.