FROTH RINSE REFLECT SEND

FROTH RINSE REFLECT SEND
2013
Commissioned by 4Culture for the Brightwater Environmental Education Center at Brightwater Wastewater Treatment Plant, Woodinville, WA 

participatory public project; 600 bars of custom-made glycerin soap with ceramic “stones” with poetry inscribed encased in each bar, map of service area for wastewater treatment plant with stickers

Participants are invited to take one bar of soap, after marking on a map the location where their soap will enter the waste stream. Each custom-made bar of clear glycerin soap has a hand-made ceramic “stone” inside imprinted with lines from a poem written for this project by Janet Norman Knox.  As participants use their soap, they eventually receive the poem stone: a relic and reminder of their connection to the massive wastewater system.

CARBON SHINING IN OUR FACES
by Janet Norman Knox

we are mostly water—two H 
one O—polar and pulling 

we read each other in our palms
1 human cell to 9 bacteria

froth hand over hand
rinse you swirl me

our Coriolis clockwise 
northern hemisphere drains

DNA—elementary Watson
and Crick—quick—spin a glint 

reflect light the Sound 
send our C to salt and sea