2022 Limited edition of 9 sets
Material: mouth blown glass, engraved
Produced by: Vetreria Simone Cenedese and Eugenio Panizzi
mischertraxler.com
Austrian design studio mischer’traxler has created Access, a set of six drinking glasses wherein each piece represents a different region of the world to collectively illustrate disparities in access to clean drinking water.
The United Nations identifies access to clean water as a basic human right. However, as of 2022, according to Unicef and the WHO, one in four people around the world lack safely managed drinking water.1 The studio’s design transforms data on water scarcity and global inequality into a powerful, tangible form, encouraging reflection on this critical issue. In doing so, the work offers a stark reminder of our interconnectedness and the responsibilities we have to one another as members of a global community.
Each glass translates the available percentage of clean water access in a specific region. In each glass, the base and the cup together represent a total of 100 percent. The transparent part depicts the percentage of safely accessible drinking water in the location. Whilst the colored base refers to a limited access to water, the engraved lines on the bottom represent the region’s unimproved amount (meaning water sources that offer no protection from contamination, leading to potential health hazards).
The glasses represent Sub-Saharan Africa (30% access to clean drinking water), Europe and North America (96%), Western Asia and Northern Africa (79%), Latin America (75%), Central and Southern Asia (62%), and the global average (74%).
The designers observe: “We often take clean and fresh tap-water for granted—maybe we should see it more often in relation to other areas, to cherish it more and use it in a respectful way.”
This collection was originally commissioned by Punta Conterie for Forms of Drinking, curated by Elisa Testori. The mischer’traxler studio team who contributed to the Access project includes Katharina Mischer, Thomas Traxler, Sophia Stoewer, Florian Semlitsch, and Christoph Heidebrecht.
