Tasting Water at Canal Convergence 2021

Abstract

Consumer hesitancy around using wastewater as a drinking water source has proved a stumbling block for water reuse projects. When water professionals technologically clean up wastewater, they begin the process of making it “forget” its previous interactions with humans. Current educational and communication approaches used by water utilities, however, “forget” to engage the sociality of tasting. To activate consumers’ sensory experiences—the thing most often seen as getting in the way adoption of water reuse projects—and to investigate how tasting can help bring to remembrance the other things communities value about water, we developed a multi-modal art–science public engagement exhibit, Tasting Water. First exhibited at Scottsdale’s 2021 Canal Convergence festival and again at the 2022 AZ Water Conference, Tasting Water engaged the public and water professionals in an open-ended invitation to rethink the way they use taste within a larger series of remembering practices in evaluating their water.