BEIJING — The 9,000 bottles of water on display at an art gallery in Beijing last month appeared identical to those of Nongfu Spring, one of China’s most popular spring water brands, with one jarring difference. Inside each bottle was brown, murky groundwater collected from a Chinese village.

The water from the village, Xiaohaotu, in the central province of Shaanxi, is polluted with heavy metals, the likely result of nearby coal mining and gas exploration operations, residents and officials say.

“The things I’m concerned about are all related to people’s survival experience,” said Brother Nut, an artist and activist known only by his pseudonym, who put up the exhibit. “For example, do people have fresh air, clean water to drink? These are basic human rights.”

This is not Brother Nut’s first attempt at turning pollution into art with a message — in 2015, he used an industrial vacuum to suck up particulate matter in Beijing’s air and formed it into a brick — but the “Nongfu Spring Market” exhibit stands out for prompting officials to take action.