Other bodies of water

Rhone river ( 2022 – 2023)

Research field notes:

The first encounter with Rhone river was a dive into its crystal clear waters and the feeling of its currents, movement, materiality, smell. With a gaze and a moment of reflection, the first words were “Who are you?”, “What can we learn from you?, and “What can we offer to a river which has everything?”
When we start a relation with a new river, is almost like a ceremony, a vehicle of belonging that reminds us of our responsibility towards bodies of water as our kin. As activators, we ensure that these principles are felt by others, installing a sense of urgency, responsibility and accountability. We try to map the existent political bodies that are already on the ground working with the river.
While spending time with Rhone, we’ve met river voices that told us about the wounded source of this river and the urgency of the glacier melting. Somehow the relationship seems distant from its source, yet its untamed life force tell us stories of grief, suicide and death. It’s injuries seem to be invisible and we try to learn more about its history through the corrections, water ownership, land use and laws.

RIO TEJO ( 2021-2022)

Research field notes:

Where does a river start and end? And how can we rise and defend the many rivers we have lost?
We study the riverine infrastructural landscape from the perspective of people on the ground, mapping the entities involved in the hydrological cycle, and how it has been altered by industrial metabolism and forms of communal dispossession. We do this by using walking as a methodology and exploring various sensing practices, listening exercises, as well as conducting interviews. Studying closely various bodies of water in contact with local communities, artists, lawyers and activists, we debate the viability of river rights and other juridical forms, learning from the context of particular conflicts at sight. We then enter into a deep process of dealing with climate grief, through applying tools of restorative justice and communal healing.

In collaboration with Alkantara and with the support of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Alcochete Municipality

Sebkhet Sejoumi ( 2021-2023)

Research field notes:

We are walking on the shelter for migrating flamingos, hearing voices of hybrid species and queering waters, fuzzy waters and flamingos
touching stones that held ancient knowings
listening to the fuzzy waters voiced by militancy, resistance and incapability of changing. Mud, waste, trash, swampy, salt, species inequality,
anarchic housing, dumping sites next to hospitals
Drought spreading and persisting through out the country. A journalist told us the other day ” either you burn yourself on fire or no one will hear you”
Water sources are disrupted with mining
communities fighting for a healthy environment, many known yet many unknown. Listening to Salicornia, a succulent being able to reduce pollution and increase water flow. Listening to Quinoa, that neutralizes salinization on the super dry lands, listening to footsteps, my ears to the ground asking as we walk. Listening to the water and fishes infiltrated by micro-plastics, listening to the resilient plants striving to survive any kind of weather condition. Listening to the plastic bags flying in the wind and nesting in the trees.

Rhone river ( 2022 – 2023)

Rhone river ( 2022 – 2023)

How do we organize stories, memories and things as a process to deconstruct the existent systems of governance for a river?

Rhone river ( 2022 – 2023)

Do we take care of the river or does the river take care of us? Who decides for  river governance and does the river want to be governed? River Agora at Porteus, where we heard stories from the Rhône guardians, and weave new alliances. With the support of id-eau who helped us finding river guardians from Rhone glacier to France, we will hear the stories of Floriane Facchini, Felix Küchler, Laurence Piaget-Dubuis, Emma-Louise Lavigne, Gilles Mulhauser, Loan Gyax.

Rhone river ( 2022 – 2023)

In this sensorial cartography we acknowledge the people and species of Rhone including dogs, trees, earthworms, periwinkles, clams, cormorants, great chickadees, blue chickadees, woodpeckers, red squirrels, wood pigeon, green collar, common buzzard, wood duck, catfish, pike, bleak, beavers (someone found some gnawed wood), swans, herons… spider, dandelion, milan noir, fish, trees, moss, stones, swans…  are here with kin bound by this act to the Rhone river.

RIO TEJO ( 2021-2022)

Research field notes:

While walking for two days with the Rio Tejo, we are witnessing bodies, that are there to observe, to listen, to search, to hear, to be with. Our walking-with is a ritual that gathers things from the ecosystem as proof of evidence of our relationship. We walk to express a sense of becoming, always moving, flowing and following the streams. Walking-with is an act of accountability, a form of solidarity, unlearning and reconciling.

RIO TEJO ( 2021-2022)

Sebkhet Sejoumi ( 2021-2023)

SONGS OF CARE

Lake Sejoumi

We come to you

With an offering

Lake Sejoumi

We listen to you

With our bones and songs

Lake Sejoumi

Listen to our prayers

Lake Sejoumi here we are with you