The artist poured non-toxic dye into the rivers of different cities in the world (here it's Chicago) to draw people's attention to the environment they pass everyday.
From an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist:
HUO: So the idea was to make the city visible for its inhabitants, who no longer take any notice of the way it works or what's special about it. What you did was aimed at challenging their perception of their environment as something changeless and reassuring.
OE: Right. I wanted to get a fix on how the river is perceived in the city. Is it something dynamic or static? Something real or just a representation? I wanted to make it present again, get people to notice its movement and turbulence. For a few minutes there it was "hyperreal". In some respects the history of cities is the history of how they're represented and most of the time this is done by accentuating the classical, monumental structures that suggest power. The way we experience public spaces is more to do with the way representation and iconography influence our senses and our habits of seeing. A lot of people see urban space as an external image they have no connection with, not even physically.
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