The Museum of Future Water is an online and travelling participatory exhibition inviting the public to share water samples from imagined futures. These “messages in a bottle” spark conversations about how climate change and human choices shape water futures, encouraging creative thinking and critical reflection on what shapes possibility.
The Museum of Future Water is a participatory, travelling and online museum dedicated to exploring how our relationships with water and futures. Its core goal is to spark public dialogue about the many possible water futures emerging from climate change, social values and human decision‑making. By inviting contributions from everyday people rather than experts alone, the Museum fosters “Participatory Possitopian Futures”—plural, imaginative, and open‑ended visions that challenge narrow utopian or dystopian narratives.
The Museum began as a physical exhibition in Victoria, Australia, and continues to grow through community engagement across the country. It offers workshops, installations, and a portable travelling exhibition that collaborates with local venues and communities to gather new contributions. These activities encourage visitors to reflect on their agency in shaping water futures and to consider how diverse possibilities might be woven together.
Its collection consists of speculative artworks in the form of “messages in a bottle” from imagined futures. Contributors imagine their region 25 years ahead, identify water that would matter in that future, and return with a symbolic sample. Each bottle includes a narrative label explaining its origin and significance, forming a collective tapestry of hopes, fears and provocations about water.
Through these imaginative artefacts, the Museum invites the public to step beyond present constraints, reflect critically on power and possibility, and engage in creative conversations about the futures we may create, avoid or adapt to.
