Adrian Parr
Water regularly and effortlessly cleans and refreshes every aspect of our lives so that we can get on with our lives, spending time on other things, like earning a living, studying, or simply just enjoying the best life has to offer. But this is not the case for people living in the slums of Nairobi. In slum areas water and sanitation services are especially bad.
Trailer – The Intimate Realities of Water from Sean Hughes on Vimeo.
The Intimate Realities of Water documentary provides small glimpses into the everyday realities of water in two of Nairobi’s slums: Kibera and Dagoretti. We follow the everyday chores, rituals, and routines of women living in the slums. This film is a series of portraits, both hopeful and sometimes heartbreaking. These portraits blur the line between the built environment, people, and ecology. It tells the story of water as a social force, following the fascinating ways water constitutes bodies, cities, economic life, and cultural activities, bringing these into relationship with one another.
This is not a film about life in the slums. Rather, this film is their survival guide to living in the slums.
Adrian Parr is Professor of Environmental Politics and Cultural Criticism at the University of Cincinnati. She is the Director of the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center and a UNESCO water chair. She has published several books, the most recent being The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics (Columbia University Press) and Hijacking Sustainability (MIT Press).