Updated
British artist Amy Sharrocks asked and the people of Western Australia delivered.
It was a strange request; bottle your tears, runoff from sprinklers, or any other water that has meaning in your life.
Now the vast and unusual collection has gone on display.
"We have 319 bottles so far of water, any water, in any bottle, that people have given us over the past year," Sharrocks said.
"We have water of all shapes and sizes. We have the toothpaste spit from a whole family who gathered one evening to collect it.
"We have water from the Canning Dam, water from a sprinkler, from a young girl who said that she wanted fast water so she ran around after the sprinkler trying to catch it."
There is also a contribution from a woman who collected the amniotic fluid when she gave birth.
"We have so many detailed, intimate moments of people's lives that they have shared with us."
Water is essential
Laid out on platforms that resemble ripples or waves, the collection is both an artwork and a historic record.
It will be given to the Western Australian Museum permanently after the display ends at Fremantle Arts Centre.
But why did Sharrocks, who has created so-called museums of water in Britain and the Netherlands, want people to bottle the liquid in their daily lives and put it on display?
"It's the most essential thing. We can't live without it for any length of time," she said.
"It's a metaphor that we use for thinking all the time. We say, 'my ideas have dried up', or we can be 'flooded with emotion'.
"We claim a connection to water every day, but we also throw it away, step on it, flush it, protect ourselves against it.
"I wanted to just ask people to think a bit more clearly about it."
Tears from an argument saved
Accompanying each bottle is a handwritten explanation from the donor, telling the story behind the water.
"Some stories are incredibly sad and heartbreaking and some are hilarious," Sharrocks said.
A teenage girl offered up a large volume of tears she shed during an argument with her mother.
The two hardly ever talked seriously, the girl said, so the moment was quite special.
A group of five friends who have been swimming together for years put their goggles and water from the pool in five glass jars to celebrate their time following the black line.
A midwife brought in a specimen jar of urine.
"She said it's the urine that I test and that tells me everything about the health of the mum and baby," Sharrocks said.
"Actually that bottle arrived warm."
Facing a drier future
The aim of the museum is to encourage people to think about just how important water is in their lives.
"We are facing a drier future," Sharrocks said.
"Cape Town is heading towards day zero, Perth's water is over 80 per cent from desalination plants.
"That kind of vulnerability of existence here and around the world is a terrifying prospect which we are all facing.
"It felt very timely to ask people what they thought about water, to reconsider how much we need water.
"This is a love letter to water. It's let me count the ways that I notice how you run through my day."
Creating the museum in Perth, Sharrocks said she had been struck by the different attitude to water in a drought-prone country.
"You are really good in Western Australia at hoarding it, in your rain tanks, so many people have told me about the buckets and pots they put out.
"You are good at holding on to it, but I wonder if we can all benefit from a little more consideration of how to equip us for this drier future."
The Museum of Water is on display at Fremantle Arts Centre until March 23 as part of the Perth International Arts Festival.
Topics: visual-art, water, library-museum-and-gallery, carnivals-and-festivals, offbeat, human-interest, perth-6000
First posted