Rivers consists of one hundred specimens of water from one hundred different rivers around the British Isles. The specimens have been collected, distilled and stored in one hundred sealed storage jars, and placed inside a constructed boathouse.

Each sample of water can be understood to hold the physical ‘memories’ of specific times, places and events, preserving them forever. On the outside of the boathouse, the names of the rivers from which the water samples were taken are recorded, engraved into the wooden exterior.

A comparable process informed Kovats’ piece All the Sea (2012–14). In this work Kovats assembled seawater samples gathered both by herself and by a team of volunteers from around the globe, forming a near-comprehensive library of water contained, with some pathos, in 365 small bottles and displayed on modest shelving units.

‘I think water has a memory. It is our solvent that carries the sediments of place, time and experience.’ Tania Kovats

Biography

Tania Kovats (b.1966, Brighton) studied at Newcastle Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. Kovats is currently Professor of Drawing and Making at DJCAD, University of Dundee. Her work includes temporary and permanent sculptural works, often in the public realm, drawing, and writing, that consider her preoccupation with water, rivers, seas and oceans. She works at the confluence of environmental, psychological, political, and the personal.

Her work has focused on drawing and mapping landscapes and describing or using geological processes in the making of both sculpture and drawings. Her sculptures often address our experience and understanding of landscape, particularly dramatic rock and stone structures where the formative history of an area can be seen. Through her research, Kovats has developed an interest in geological forces and how they affect a landscape and the built environment.

Her recent solo exhibitions include ‘Oceanic’, Parafin (2021), ‘Head To Mouth’, Berwick Gymnasium (2019), ‘Troubled Waters’, Phoenix Gallery, Exeter (2019), ‘Evaporation’, Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester (2016), ‘Oceans’, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2014). In 1991 she was awarded the Barclays Young Artist Award at the Serpentine Gallery, London. In 2015 she was nominated for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women at the Whitechapel Gallery. Kovats’ work is held in numerous public and private collections including the Arts Council Collection, British Council, National Maritime Museum, Government Art Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, Henry Moore Institute, Fruitmarket Gallery, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven and the Speed Museum, Kentucky. Public artworks are permanently installed at the Natural History Museum, Government Art Collection, Fruitmarket Gallery and the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge.