‘Don’t they see that there are people living on this land? Living off this land? It’s like when the British tested rockets at Maralinga—they were blind and didn’t see that people were living there. Then they made the people sick and blind. The birds fell out of the sky. Their country was ruined. Yami Lester was blinded and he had no idea what was happening. Today we know what’s about to happen, there is about to be a water crisis. We have to stop it before it happens.’ – Maureen Nampijinpa O’Keefe, Kaytetye, Warlpiri poet, convenor Running Water Community Press. [1] Water is Precious in the Desert, is an exhibition about water in danger. Ancient aquifers — those well-known like the Great Artesian Basin and others, little-known, like the aquifers lying under arid lands in the Northern Territory — are the major sources of fresh water for the world’s driest and flattest continent. Disquiet over water, land and resource extraction lie at the heart of the northern Australian policy narrative, known by the euphemism “develop the north”.