The book is a survey into The Sanctuary of Water, a collective artwork conceived by artist Tomás Saraceno, following a direct request by the Indigenous Communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc, northern Argentina, for a permanent sculpture to facilitate community-based rural tourism. It is being constructed with the support of Haus der Kunst Munich as part of the exhibition “Ancestral Futures.”
The publication contains numerous photographs of the construction process and an essay by Tomás Saraceno tracing the political and personal genealogy of The Sanctuary of Water across two decades of collaboration with the Indigenous communities of the Salinas Grandes. It also includes texts by members of the Red Atacama network writing as lawyers, researchers and activists exploring the cultural, cosmological, ecological, and political dimensions of the project, situating The Sanctuary of Water within the broader history of Indigenous resistance, collective practice, and environmental justice. A travel essay by Andrei Fernandez and Celeste Valero, along with contributions by Sarah Johanna Theurer and Andrea Lissoni, place The Sanctuary of Water within the context of collective practice in art history and in relation to the programme at Haus der Kunst.
