Like Water is a durational performance by Palestinian artist Taysir Batniji, presented as part of the 2008 exhibition Water: Misery and Delight at IFA Gallery in Stuttgart.

Using water and a paintbrush, Batniji inscribes onto the concrete floor an inventory of 109 Arabic terms for "water", drawn from Mahmoud Darwish's "Memory for Forgetfulness." As the artist writes, each word vanishes progressively, evaporating into air or absorbing into stone — leaving almost invisible traces on the ground.

Reflecting on this gesture, Batniji explains: "The work stems from a striking contradiction: the vast linguistic vocabulary of more than a hundred words for water in Darwish’s book is set against a region suffering from its acute scarcity. Today, amid recent political developments, addressing this crisis has become all the more urgent."

This performance is part of Across Waters, a research project and public program curated by Reem Rizk in collaboration with the Arab Image Foundation, Haven for Artists, Thkio Ppalies, and Visual Voices, with the generous support of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC).