Mariko HORI
Falls, but Cannot Land
interactive installation
water, stones, cedar, and soot
2026
In the collection of Spacehouse Himalayas, India
Water was not merely a resource.
It was something observed over long periods of time, protected, prayed for, and shared by communities.
Naulas, ancient water structures found in the Himalayan region, were small architectures built around underground springs.
Their sustainability did not come only from engineering efficiency, but through relationships between ritual, culture, ecology, community, and folklore. Red snakes protect the Naulas.
People observed water for at least one year.
Only after passing through the summer and seeing whether water still remained, could they begin to understand what kind of Naula should exist there.
They knew which trees invite water, and which trees dry it out.
They said water becomes angry when those trees are cut.
There was knowledge not only for using water, but for living together with it.
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This installation is composed of locally used materials from Satoli. A suspended Naula-like structure made from thin roofing stone slowly releases water droplets onto a flame-carbonized superhydrophobic cedar surface below. When the water touches the surface, it is not absorbed, but slides away.
The water falls, but cannot land.
Historically, Naulas connected forests, groundwater, stone, mythology, maintenance rituals, and collective responsibility. In this work, water can still touch the surface, but it can no longer remain there.
It suggests the growing distance between water and humans shaped by climate change, urbanization, institutionalized infrastructure, and colonial transformations of land and water.
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“The continuation of this technique depends entirely on community support. If people prefer water tanks, this knowledge may disappear.”
Ratan Singh Bisht, perhaps the last Naula builder in the Nainital region, said this quietly.
Traditions with useful functions are often said to be something we should preserve and develop.
But if the community that sustains them disappears, where does the water go?
Deeply rooted in folklore and everyday life, Naulas once existed as bridges between fact and story, present and past.
This work attempts to reconstruct the disappearing knowledge of water, and the changing relationship between water and humans, through small acts of dripping and unstable movement in space.
Created during the artist in residence program
at Spacehouse Himalayas, India
All content © Mariko Hori 2026