WEF Highlights

Events mix art and wastewater Everyone has a dream. In Timothy Furstnau’s case, that dream involves leading others along the path human waste takes from toilet to treatment. Furstnau is not an overzealous sanitation engineer. He is a member of the art collaborative known as FICTILIS (Oakland, Calif.). The wastewater walks he organizes are a […]

Artists from around the world transform manhole covers and wastewater into art Some artists look to nature for inspiration. Others explore color, light, or shapes. But a few have found their muse in the municipal wastewater system. One group in Europe is inspired by manhole covers, while another in Taiwan is inspired by the unusual […]

Joe Lagnese may have had a long career in engineering, but his talents extend from the technical to the artistic. Lagnese first joined the Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Va.) and the Pennsylvania Water Environment Association (WEA) in 1956. He also served as WEF president from 1971 to 1972 and has earned WEF Honorary Membership. […]

Although located at least 1 hour from the nearest beach, the Science Museum of Virginia (SMV; Richmond) will feature visions of the ocean until September. A new exhibit unveiled last month, Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea, showcases 12 large-scale representations of iconic marine wildlife pieced together from one of the ocean’s deadliest predators […]

Most museums that showcase priceless works of art enforce a strictly “hands-off” policy. But a new installation at the New York City Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum offers visitors a unique, intimate, one-on-one chance to engage with art. “America” by Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan is a fully functional toilet cast in 18-karat solid gold. Since the […]

Lindsay Olson explores the beauty in science   “I create conceptual art about municipal wastewater treatment,” said no one ever – until Lindsay Olson came along. Olson has boldly gone where no artist has gone before: the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant in Cicero, Ill., the world’s largest wastewater treatment facility, according to the Metropolitan Water […]

An Idaho wastewater utility installs artwork of microorganisms near its WRRF  Few think of a water resource recovery facility (WRRF) as a likely venue to showcase local art, but that is exactly what the City of Coeur D’Alene (Idaho) Wastewater Utility Department building is doing. Since summer 2012, the facility has featured several art pieces, […]