Five Books on Water

Water is a central concern in the ecological and social issues that we are faced with, and technical solutions do not suffice. We need a radically diverse approach that stages and cultivates relations. Without promising grandiose schemes to save the environment, ecosocial design fosters curiosity about the ways in which people draw on their experience and shared commitment to landscapes and ecologies.

Through a collection of essays and case studies, Water Works shows over sixty careful responses to flooding, draught, pollution, extraction and other issues around freshwater. Divided into seven themes: Purity, Wild, Scale, Representation, Violence, Infrastructure and Commerce, Water Works allows us to learn from places and makers that build on the intricate relationships between people and other life forms, materials and (infra)structures.

Critically blending knowledge derived from craft, art, science and ecology, these works ask: what are sensible ways to embrace and connect with water? Through wading, floating, testing and tasting, how can we generate more desirable ecosocial relations? In facing large-scale engineering, climate change, privatization and other forms of water violence, these works are an invitation to design together with water as a site and medium for ecosocial renewal.

Contributors: Mari Bastashevski, Janna Bystrykh, Center for Genomic Gastronomy, Ştefan Constantinescu, Carolina Dominguez-Guzmán, Clemens Driessen, Shahnoor Hasan, Clara Sika Helbo, Ils Huygens, Francesca Masoero, Coltrane McDowell, Mariana & Joana Pestana, Benedetta Pompili, Esha Shah, Mihnea Tănăsescu, Serina Tarkhanian, John Thackara, Daniela Tokashiki, Jennifer Veilleux, Henriëtte Waal, Ria Waal.

Interviews with: Jon Ardern (Superflux), Atelier LUMA, John van Boxel, Natsai Audrey Chieza (Faber Futures), Achmed Salem Dabah, Julien Fargetton, Sylvain Hartenberg (OOZE Architects), Anab Jain (Superflux), Zairah Khan, Rebecca Lave, Mary Maggic, Kent O. Miller, mirko nikolić, Roric Paulman, Marjetica Potrč, Eva Pfannes (OOZE Architects), Qanat Collective, Marjetica Potrč, Rimini Protokoll, Fernando Felipe Pérez Riojas, Sandrine Rozier, Rutger Schrijer, Susan Schuppli, Moreno Schweikle, Veronika Sedlmair, Islam Shabana, Brynjar Sigurðarson, Billy Tiller, Heidi Vogels, Daniel Wetzel (Rimini Protokoll), Thijs de Zeeuw.

Amalgama is the outcome of the fourth edition of Convivial Tables, a field-based research project commissioned by TBA21–Academy for Ocean Space, dedicated to exploring the relationships between food and ecology, and their impact on bodies of water.

Curated by Chiara Famengo with Barena Bianca and Tocia! Cucina e comunità—the curatorial board of Convivial Tables IV: Shifting Landscapes—the book revisits and deepens the conversations that shaped the program. Through different methodological and disciplinary perspectives, Amalgama is grounded in the belief that, in the face of a constantly changing landscape—shaped by human activity and climate change – it is necessary to reconsider our daily practices. The act of “amalgamating” becomes an opening gesture: integrating what might appear foreign to our traditions in order to consciously inhabit ongoing transformations. In the lagoon environment, seaweed emerges as a symbol of these shifts. As highlighted in the volume, seaweed is “a consequence, not a problem” to be reinterpreted as a resource capable of nourishing crops, tables, and bodies. The contributions—both visual and textual – weave together local knowledge and contemporary visions, suggesting new forms of cultural adaptation to a constantly transforming environment and to climate change.

With contributions by Chiara Famengo, Fulvia Larena, Fabio Cavallari, Pietro Consolandi, Marco Bravetti, Enrico Sambo, Bruno La Rocca, Devy Chinazzi, Emi Bio Lab, Viviana Cescati

Something In the Water is a project curated by American artist Oscar Tuazon, which explores water as a metaphor, as an element that resists any attempt at shaping, and as an essential medium for artists: a pure mirror.

Something in the Water marks a new chapter in Oscar Tuazon’s ongoing Water School project. Bringing together the work of fifteen artists who engage with water as a living material and an artistic medium, the publication explores the elemental faculty of water through a poetic lens. The language of water is poetry, and Tuazon uses this publication as an occasion to present reflections on water from poets throughout the twentieth century as well as new poems from Eileen Myles, Lisa Robertson, and Cedar Sigo.

The book include works by Lita Albuquerque, Saif Azzuz, Matthew Barney, Christo, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Torkwase Dyson, Leslie Hewitt, Nancy Holt, Pavlo Makov, Virginia Overton, Marjetica Potrč, Ugo Rondinone, Peter Sandbichler, Anna Sew Hoy, Oscar Tuazon.

Water politics is a widely discussed and extremely prevalent topic throughout the world. From agriculture to energy, health to climate, transport to leisure, water plays an integral role in the functioning of our inhabited environments.

Yet over the last two centuries, the increasing enclosure of water through privatisation and marketisation has led to global water inequality and water poverty for many around the world, threatening the notion that it is a shared wealth for all.

Water Wareness is a multilayered publication that investigates how forms of water within our cities shape our urban environments, and affect our access to water as a common good in our daily inhabiting of the city. The publication contents with the questions: rather than occurring in opposition to capitalist tendencies where the state and market govern it, can individual water commoning instead become complementary to it? And, if so, how might we share the task of commoning amongst everybody in the wake of the climate emergency?

We lack a sustainable approach towards water and a well-balanced relationship with the natural world of seas and oceans. Combined with the impact of climate change, water issues create enormous global challenges that require systemic change. To systematically transform how water is valued across business practices, policies, cultural beliefs and behaviors, we must address social attitudes to keep us and the environment healthy.

The book Art + Water provides imaginative new ideas on water issues and invites us to rethink and reinvent our society. Five essays and ten texts highlighting the artistic projects developed as part of the EC-funded STARTS4Water program provide a fascinating overview of cultural and artistic approaches to urgent water challenges.