A couple of weeks ago a few of us from the Rivanna crew attended the Second Street Gallery exhibit on Sustainability to see the film “Wastewater” by Jason Robinson.
Of course, we were interested in the entire exhibit, but most intrigued by Jason’s film in which the headline star was none other than the substance we handle every day 24/7: wastewater!
Victoria Fort, one of our civil engineers, had heard about the exhibit from a friend who jokingly said, “You work at the poop plant… This is right up your alley!” And gave her a copy of the Cville Weekly article. We prefer the term Advanced Water Resource Recovery facility, but that’s for another blog.
So a handful of us—Tom Frederick, Dr. Rich Gullick, Victoria Fort, Katherine Karaffa, and Teri Kent (list from photo) -decided to make the five-minute trek up and over the hill from our Moores Creek facility to Second Street to see what the hubbub was all about.
Honestly, we didn’t know what to expect to see.
As we entered the room, we were surprised and mesmerized by the beautiful images floating across the screen. Nay, transfixed. Black, gray, and white patterns; colorful clouds; rhythmic movements… A soothing calm came over all of us as we watched in fascination.
The curator told us the story of how Jason had visited the wastewater facility and was captivated by the beauty of both the infrastructure and the biology of each step of the process. He looked beyond the surface of our 9 to 5 and found the beauty in it. We were captivated.
Warren explained that Jason in his artists’ talks was telling people about the various processes that dirty water has to go through to become clean enough to return to the river. A wave of appreciation came over me that Jason had been out there doing my job for me – connecting people to this most precious resource! In a different, creative, interesting and soothing way.
Water in any form has a special meaning to all of us, not just those at our facility who help make it safe to return to the river when it leaves our body, then our plant. So thank you, Jason, for your artistic vision and your wastewater film.
Listen to Second Street Executive Director Warren Craghead’s Interview with Jason Robinson .
