Visit Punctum's Public Cooling House – Contemporary Art And Our Water Future

Roll up your sleeves, skirts, and slacks, slip off your socks and step into Punctum's Public Cooling House - a unique public gathering place for beating the heat.

Containing individual cooling pools, exploring traditional cooling practices and presenting an unbeatable line up of performers and speakers, Punctum's Public Cooling House draws from simple and ancient evaporative cooling techniques, and presents a variety of 'water works' by local, national and International Artists. Sessions also include conversations with enlightened professionals managing 'bodies of water' on how we might contend with a water tight future.

Punctum's artistic director Jude Anderson, who is responsible for the concept and production says: "Like a waterfall, clear visions of our water and energy futures help leaders make decisions which flow on to ensure our regions and towns flourish, and as citizens and individuals we continue to survive and thrive. The Public Cooling House has come about through some fascinating and sometimes very serious conversations with leading scientists, engineers, artists, researchers, and local suppliers concerned by our water future. Whilst playful and entertaining, the Cooling House is also a very real application of some traditional, ingenious cooling techniques like the Coolgardie Safe. It's a response to how we can all play a part in ensuring responsible use of energy and water supplies in uncertain times. It invites everyone to experience what we can find together when we take a plunge into our relationship with water."

Prompted by conversations between scientists and artists concerned by our 'water future', the flat pack Cooling House has been funded through the Regional Center for Culture program and Regional Arts Victoria, Punctum is excited that this ground breaking work will be among the first new works being created and presented throughout 2018 under the Regional Centre of Culture umbrella.

Part art house/part bath house, Punctum's Public Cooling House a uniquely dry country approach to paddling and performance.

Punctum's Public Cooling House stems from Punctum's involvement in the 2017 Asia TOPA/Arts House 'Water Futures' symposium, where artists and international scientists conceived of hypothetical collaborative and localised projects focusing on water issues.

The project and its program has also come about as a response to the past 15 years in our region where we have directly experienced the increasing ferocity of heat extremes. The Bureau of Meteorology predicts that over the next 50 years the number of days over 35 degrees in our region will more than double from an average of 10 a year, to 20.

How can we build knowledge, resilience, and connect and respond in inclusive, ethical, and humane ways?

Punctum's Public Cooling House is a contemporary interpretation of nomadic desert architecture which combines ingenious cooling systems such as the Coolgardie Safe and Syrian wind catchers with flat pack low impact design.
Designed and built in regional Victoria, the Cooling House is a first of its kind and a truly innovative response to a proposed future of weather extremes.

With our brain and heart being made up of 73% water, Punctum's Public Cooling House has invited enlightened professionals managing 'bodies of water' to consider how we might contend with our water future and engage in live conversations throughout the Cooling House season. So, from conversations with leading scientists, writers, thinkers, researchers, engineers, and believe it or not - a couple of visionary policy makers, the Public Cooling House is also a very real application of some of their thoughts - and ours.

Punctum has connected with different cultures from throughout the region to record their stories and memories of water in their home country. Working with Sound Artist Jacques Soddell these memories have been merged with recordings of our region's rivers to create a unique soundscape which will be played throughout the installation.

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