When most people think about art, they usually imagine beautiful sculpture or intricate paintings hanging up in museums. Essentially, the process of bringing artwork to life is a creative one but art itself can also serve a purpose – it can serve to raise awareness about issues. This is the great value of the new ambitious project “the Droplet” by Lola Tillyaeva and Timur Tillyaev. 

Who are Lola Tillyaeva and Timur Tillyaeva?

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva is a philanthropist and former  Uzbek diplomat. 

She is married to businessman Timur Tillyaev and they have three children: two daughters and one son.

Mr. Tillyaev and his wife are prominent social figures who dedicate their time to projects that hold personal meaning to them. While Mr. Tillyaev focuses on his business activities in the international transportation industry, Mrs. Karimova-Tillyaeva focuses her energy on the foundation and leadership of nonprofits dedicated to the wellbeing of children.

Lola Tillyaeva is also a former Permanent Delegate of Uzbekistan to UNESCO. Her flagship charities work with disadvantaged children and she also champions environmental causes. Her charity The You Are Not Alone Foundation, founded in 2002, provides care to children who have been abandoned or orphaned.

Timur Tillyaev is a businessman in the international transportation industry. Prior to embarking on his career, Timur Tillyaev attended high school in the United States before earning an undergraduate degree from Midland University, a liberal arts college in Fremont, Nebraska.

Given that both share a passion for projects that involve environmental causes, it comes as no surprise that they have embarked upon a new, ambitious Project called, The Droplet.

What Is The Droplet?

This environmental project, “The Droplet”, is designed to highlight the urgency of issues relating to global warming, water scarcity and conservation. The art installation was designed in the shape of a falling water drop and was developed in collaboration with artist Marcos Lutyens. Described as a multi-sensory experience, The Droplet engages participants through sound, smell, and touch, as well as by providing information on the current situation regarding global warming.

This structure is built of aluminum tubing and towers to a height of 12m high and is 6m in circumference at the base. The pavilion tours major cities around the world as a striking installation for conferences and performances. In this way, it stimulates discussion and raises awareness around the issues of water scarcity. This innovative approach has proved widely successful in engaging audiences and encouraging interaction with the exhibits. It is a great way of raising the profile of this critical issue.

The project is supported by The Harmonist. This is a Maison de parfums inspired by the ancient Chinese philosophy of Feng Shui which seeks to find an inner and outer balance between the five fundamental elements: fire, water, wood, metal, earth. Ten signature scents have been carefully crafted by perfumer Guillaume Flavigny of Givaudan using pure, precious ingredients from around the world. These reflect and enhance the wearer’s own prevalent element, empowering the inner-self and the body by bringing them into harmony with the external environment.

Where can The Droplet be seen?

The Droplet will be exhibited in several prominent venues around the world, each chosen for its unique relationship to water.

The importance of water

Water is an element of nature, a foundation of all natural ecosystems and is fundamental for the maintenance and reproduction of life on our planet. What’s more, it constitutes an irreplaceable factor in the development of the biological processes that make life possible.

Water is the most abundant component in organic matter. Typical living beings contain on average 70% water. Vegetables, for example, have more water than animals and certain tissues (such as fatty tissue) contain less water – between 10% to 20% water – than others such as, nervous tissue, with 90% water. Water content also varies with age, thus, younger individuals have more water than adults.

Water is the foundation of life: a crucial resource for humanity and for all other living beings. We all need it, and not just for drinking. Our rivers and lakes, our coastal, sea, and ground waters are valuable resources that must be protected.

Likewise, water contributes to the stability and the well-functioning of the environment and of the beings and organisms that inhabit it. Water is an essential element for the existence of all animal and plant life on our planet. That is to say, “water is a building block for living beings and an essential natural element in the configuration of environmental systems”. In this regard, this vital fluid constitutes more than 80% of the body of most organisms and is involved in most of the metabolic processes that take place in living beings; it also plays a fundamental role in the photosynthesis process of plants and is the habitat of a great variety of living beings.

Other charities of Lola Karimova

Lola Karimova operates two charities in Uzbekistan, which help orphaned children and children with disabilities. The “You are not alone” foundation was established by Karimova-Tillyaeva in 2002 to provide assistance to orphanages and children left without parental care in Uzbekistan. Two years later, Karimova-Tillyaeva founded the National Center for the Social Adjustment of Children, a charity that provides medical and educational assistance to children with disabilities.