AN ARTIST paid tribute to one of life's key ingredients by bringing her Museum of Water to a seaside festival.

Amy Sharrocks started her collection of water two years ago and it has now, through public donations from around the world, reached more than 650 items.

Her unique collection of vessels, ranging from two inches to a foot high, went on display in Hastings for arts festival Coastal Currents.

Mrs Sharrocks started with one bottle derived from an art piece set in a river bed and it went from there.

The water is "a rainbow collection", as she calls it, with varying shades of red, yellow, green, blue, brown, white and transparent.

Some bottles commemorate beloved people who have died or precious friendships.

She told The Argus: "I had this bottle sitting in my studio and was looking at it and thought, 'Gosh that’s my water,' and wondered what other people would bring.

"I didn’t really know how many bottles I would get at the beginning.

"Whatever people choose to bring in it is almost as telling as the water they have brought. The bottles are as different as the waters."

Her work has taken the collection all around the country.

She said: "The point is to go to as many places as possible so I can get a sense of our water.

"It’s something I have been very interested in for a long time now – we all have a lifetime lived with water. I’m interested in the way people ignore it and take it for granted.

"And then if it stops, like it has in Lancashire for weeks, there’s an immediate crisis. There’s a dichotomy there – we love it, but ignore it. We chlorinate it, we defend against it with flood barriers, and I wondered if we could do better than this.

"I wanted to create a sense of reconsidering water and paying close attention to what people might like about it most of all."

Despite this she does not take any moral stance in her work.

She said: "I wouldn’t dream of putting any moral aspect on it – people can take their own meanings from it."

To further embrace her love of water, Mrs Sharrocks created a live artwork called Daytrip, where anyone who wanted to join her could fall into the sea once they had waded in knee-deep.

Mrs Sharrocks grew up in London, where she lives with her husband and three children.

She went through various jobs before she went to art school and “then it all made sense”.

Mrs Sharrocks insists she does not have favourite bottles of water – "it’s a bit like having kids, it doesn’t really work like that" – but here she has picked out ten submissions and explained them in her own words.

Her work may have left Coastal Currents but the festival, based in Hastings and St Leonards, runs until September 13.

Visit coastalcurrents.org.uk for details.