CHAPEL HILL – The Global Education Center is hosting an exhibition called The Water of Life: Artistic Expressions, and proceeds from the project will make a difference in the global water crisis.  It’s a part of the UNC campus-wide theme for this year, Water in Our World.

UNC freshman Caroline Orr has 14 paintings featured in the multimedia exhibition which also includes music, photography and film.

“The theme of water, it’s just everywhere saturating campus,” Orr said.  “I decided to compose this body of work all focused on water and that’s where it began. It grew into this initiative over the following months.”

Orr partnered with the student group, A Drink for Tomorrow, to raise money for the cause. Members of the group are going to Las Cocas, Peru, this summer to help with the construction of a clean water pipeline to a village of more than 800 people.

Nine of Orr’s paintings will be auctioned online—  live bidding is going on right now till May 10.

Each time you bid an additional 20 dollars for a piece of art, you give 20 more feet to build the pipeline.

You can click here for a link to the bidding website.

According to A Drink For Tomorrow, contaminated water and poor sanitation kills more than 3,600 children each day— that’s more than malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS combined. 2.6 billion people lack access to improved sanitation and close to a billion lack access to clean drinking water.

Orr, a Morehead Scholar, composed the 14 paintings between November and February in addition to being a full time student.

“Art for me is something I love;  it’s a de-stresser and in some ways is therapeutic. The time I spent in the studio didn’t seem like work,” Orr said.

The exhibition opened March 19 and will run until July 25.