What appears foul becomes fertile
Artist Michael Pinsky presents Your Shit Smells Like Roses. The sculpture stages a deliberate contradiction: human waste, so often treated as abject, is in fact a valuable and regenerative resource. It critiques contemporary sewage systems in which all domestic effluents are indiscriminately combined, producing a chemically complex and often toxic slurry. By contrast, the work proposes the separation of “black water” (toilet waste) from “grey water” (from sinks, washing machines, and dishwashers), allowing each stream to be processed according to its intrinsic qualities.
The installation presents three distinct water systems, black, grey, and clear, channelled through the sculptural structure to irrigate rose plants embedded within toilet forms. The roses become living indicators of each condition: black water produces vigorous and abundant growth, grey water inhibits life, and clear water sustains a modest vitality. A further inversion unfolds through scent. Grey water, perfumed by cleaning products, emits an immediately appealing fragrance, while black water initially repels. Yet over time, it is the rose nourished by human waste that develops the most complex and desirable natural scent. What appears foul becomes fertile; what appears clean reveals itself as toxic. Through this sensory and material reversal, Your Shit Smells Like Roses reframes waste as a question of context rather than inherent value. It suggests that what we discard is not without worth, but simply misplaced. Our waste is simply the right thing in the wrong place.
Programme
Opening date: 18 June
About the venue: The installation is presented inside the ‘Water Bar’, a glass building situated next to WETSUS.
About S+T+ARTS AQUA MOTION
S+T+ARTS AQUA MOTION is a two-year initiative that brings together artists, scientists, policymakers, and communities to address urgent water challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration and artistic experimentation. Rooted in the EU Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters, the project spans four major European basins, Atlantic-Arctic, Baltic-North Sea, Mediterranean, and Danube-Black Sea, and supports 25 artist residencies alongside the development of Water Innovation Labs in Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria, and Italy. These labs act as hubs for co-developing innovative, art-driven responses to regional water issues. Through hands-on engagement, speculative design, and grounded artistic practice, S+T+ARTS AQUA MOTION rethinks how water is valued and managed, fostering more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient futures.
Within this framework, the challenge Contamination Paradox: Reframing contamination as knowledge, limit and resource invites artists to engage with source-separating sanitation technologies and to reconsider contamination not only as a threat, but as a resource, a signal, and a site of inquiry. Residues, bacteria, chemicals, and micropollutants are approached not simply as waste, but as evidence, as matter for investigation, and as potential habitats for other forms of life. Through this lens, contamination becomes a way to understand systemic imbalance and a medium for response, speculation, and co-creation.
Developed in collaboration with Wetsus the European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, the Municipality of Leeuwarden, WaterCampus Leeuwarden, and with Waag Futurelab acting as mentor throughout the artistic process, the project supports the creation of new connections between artistic practice, scientific research, and societal engagement.
Interested? More information about S+T+ARTS AQUA MOTION.
Accessibility
The space is located on top of a very small hill, so unfortunately it is not easily accessible for wheelchair users. Otherwise, the location is easy to reach, and there is space nearby to park bikes and cars.
