Every Body a Water Body, Every Field a Clock

Beneath the Great Plains, spanning eight states, the Ogallala Aquifer supports between one-fifth and one-third of American agriculture. Her water is pumped onto fields by center-pivot irrigation systems that draw vast circular patterns across the landscape. These patterns cover 174,000 square miles but are perceivable only from above. Thus, despite her vastness and importance to our food supply, the Ogallala Aquifer remains invisible and largely unknown.

These giant circular fields first appeared over the Ogallala in the 1940s, but today they mark landscapes around the world as this irrigation technology continues to proliferate. It was these mysterious patterns that drew Lisa B. Woods in and led her to research the ecology, technology, and story of the Ogallala.

This work interprets this circular field motif through kinetic sculpture, video, and ceramics. Woods has drawn inspiration from both groundwater science and new animism, which is the belief that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human.

Woods invites you to try your hand at water divination, to consider the connection between the aquifer and the food on your dinner table. She invites you to reflect on what happens when this fossil water leaves her geological birthplace, never to return. As the ancient water of the Ogallala is pumped to the surface, she moves through plants and through our own bodies. The Ogallala is, in a real sense, a part of us.

Like much of our technology, Woods sees these irrigation machines as a site of inquiry. They are a place to examine the beliefs and systems that produce both bounty and consequence. What do these machines say about us? And, as one interconnected water body to another, what does the aquifer say to you?