During the weekend of 16-17 May, art collective Pimp My Pump exhibited their painted water pumps in four coaches stationed on the 6th platform at Zagreb Main Station. Numerous visitors were presented with discarded, now painted, water pumps; creative workshops for children, and were able to donate for victims of Nepal earthquake through a photography exhibition.
The Pimp My Pump collective has been, under the cloak of night, painting old water pumps for the last four years and today there is approximately a hundred decorated pumps. Some pumps are dedicated to Batman, Zagor, The Simpsons, Pack-man, Snoopy, Rubik's cube and other themes such as tram 12, mister Fulir (a character from a popular Croatian movie), Cibona tower and Zagreb's crest.
The pumps were installed at the turn of the 19th century in neighborhoods where households didn't have running water. Although their official name is Viktorija zdenci (Victoria wells), among citizens they are remembered as Željezni Francek/Martin (Steel Francis/Martin). The project has become a tourist attraction, supported by the City of Zagreb, Zagreb Tourist Board and Water supply and drainage limited liability company. Pimp My Pump collective intends to, in a similar way, protect the steel doormats found in front of buildings and similarly neglected “poles for rug dusting”, which are a typical decorum of Zagreb city neighborhoods.
HŽ passenger transport and HŽ infrastructure contributed to this promotion of painted water pumps by giving the collective four coaches in which to put up the exhibition and photographies. Interestingly, one coach was reserved for a cinema in which visitors enjoyed music documentary movies while sitting on bales of hay.
Photographs of previous work were set in the exhibition-gallery postal coach in possession of HŽ infrastructure, while a photography exhibition featuring passengers of agency Jungle Tribe from Nepal was held in a dining coach. The cinema and water pumps were staged in Dls coaches used for luggage transport. Among the exhibited were the themed pumps Vlak u snijegu (a popular Croatian children's book about a train caught in snow), Samoborčekova srebrna strijela (Samoborček silver arrow train) and Orient-express. Furthermore, excellent creative children workshops, organized by association Praktikum, were held where children painted stools, postal bags and water pumps made of paper.
