Flying rivers

Flying rivers are vast, invisible “streams” of water vapor that stretch for hundreds of kilometers. These vapor ribbons are born from the evaporation and transpiration* of trees in rainforests, transporting huge amounts of moisture from tropical regions to cooler latitudes. When an atmospheric river reaches the coast and climbs a mountain, the air cools, condenses, and releases its water vapor in the form of heavy rain or snow.

When it rains here, we have a hard time imagining that the cause is trees located on the other side of the Earth. In our imagination, rain is a phenomenon formed in nearby latitudes with a guaranteed occurrence, but it turns out to be a complex network of events and conditions that go beyond the local character assigned to it.

The works in this exhibition appear as individual markers tracing the long journey of water “exhaled” by rainforests and “inhaled” by the forests around us. Simultaneously poetic and apocalyptic, they are like a red light on the ease with which we destroy some of our most important resources for a good life and cause events that turn into severe social conflicts.

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• Gérard Moss and his “Romeo” Embraer Sertanejo (PT-RXE)

Gérard Moss (May 16, 1955 – March 16, 2022) was a Swiss-Brazilian pilot, engineer, speaker, ecologist and researcher born in England.

In 2007, Gérard Moss, together with the University of São Paulo (USP), the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) and the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development (FBDS), began a research project to assess the water flow from the clouds and the expanse of land caused by deforestation of the Amazon forest. The project consists of collecting water from the air to assess its origin and flow from the Amazon River to the southern part of America. The project is part of a larger project called “Brasil das Águas” (Brazil of Waters). According to Moss, the water flow carried by these flying rivers could be equal to that of the Amazon River itself, since each tree is responsible for about 300 liters of atmospheric water per day. Between 2006 and 2007, seven Brazilian rivers were the subject of research (Araguaia, Grande, Ribeira, Miranda, Ibiqui, Verde and Guaporé). In 2007, after the samples were collected, a comparison with water vapor from the air began. The conclusion is that a large part of the water vapor comes from the Amazon rivers, creating a phenomenon called “flying rivers”.