Thu 21 March
08:30–15:00
Symposium THE HOUSE OF RIVERS — FLUID INTERDISCIPLINARITIES FESTIVAL
RADIUS is pleased to partner with IHE Delft for the FLUID INTERDISCIPLINARITIES festival in two events: two book presentations on Wednesday 20 March, and the symposium THE HOUSE OF RIVERS on Thursday 21 March. The symposium is organised by IHE Delft Institute for Water Education with the support of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructures and Water Management.
Like water, interdisciplinarity flows across borders, takes different forms or meanings, and therefore cannot be constrained in rigid structures and definitions. The International Festival FLUID INTERDISCIPLINARITIES wishes to reflect and engage with the diversity and plurality of interdisciplinary practices in water research and education, through workshops, book presentations, symposium and artistic performances. This festival brings together long-term university partners of IHE Delft from all around the world and aims at promoting new collaborations the theme of inter- and trans-disciplinarity with artists, museums and curators. Critical and creative social scientists, hydrologists, natural scientists, artists, activists, and water professionals who are experimenting with diverse ways to do interdisciplinarity, will share and reflect on their experiences, and hopefully learn from each other.
Inspired by Bruno Latour‘s idea of a Parliament of Things, this symposium THE HOUSE OF RIVERS brings together artists, scientists and water professionals and asks the question: who and how can speak for rivers? The goal is to compare different ways and approaches of representing rivers, both in the political sense of “giving voice/speaking on behalf/representing the interests and rights of”, and in the analytical sense of “understanding, describing, explaining”. The two actions are of course interwoven, and therefore we are particularly keen on exploring transdisciplinary collaborations, contaminations, but also frictions and misunderstandings between different ways of representing water. The symposium will last one day and will feature contributions and performances by scholars, artists, and activists and will allow ample space for conversation and debate among the speakers and participants.
SESSION 1
REPRESENTING RIVERS
09:00 — 10:30
Gabriela Cuadrado Quesada & Susanne Schmeier — Revisiting Groundwater Law through the Lenses of Earth System Law and Rights of Nature
Radhika Mulay — Rights of Rivers through the Lens of Bharatnatyam
How does legal jurisprudence of Rights of Rivers connect with an art-form such as Bharatnatyam? In this study, the author, a water researcher and a practitioner of Bharatnatyam—an Indian dance form—draws linkages to the concepts of imagery and aesthetics in Indian schools of thought, elaborating on the water cosmologies embedded in Indian art forms and their connection with varied fields of psychology.
Pauline Münch — Representation, Participation and Collaboration along the River Spree
Throughout 2023, a transdisciplinary group of artists and scientists explored a small harbour in the middle of the German Spreewald—co-creating a collection of multi-modal works inspired by the waterscapes. The pieces included audio works, installations, performances and films, all highlighting different aspects of the complex human-environment relations of the river’s urban and rural flows. In this presentation, two of the works which featured a high degree of more-than-human and human collaboration and participation will be introduced. It will ask which relationships and representations with the Spree were formed throughout the co-productive processes, and dive into the discussion whether these hold the capacity to rethink and reimagine boundaries.
Featuring works by: Diane Barbé, Jonas Dahm, Maximilian Grünewald, Desirée Hetzel, Camila Ivana Vargas Pardo, Omar Sherif, Zora Ritz, Patricia Usée.
Carlota Houart — Listening to the Voices of the River: Towards Multispecies Justice in River Management and Governance
In this presentation, Carlota Houart will share a short video produced by two colleagues and her during ethnographic fieldwork in the River Maas, the Netherlands, entitled What would fish say? This video serves as an entry point for a theoretical-affective reflection on multi-species (in)justice in rivers. In other words still, why and how might we include the voices of other-than-human beings such as animals, plants, and rivers themselves into political decision-making on river management and governance? Navigating through thorny questions and complex ethical dilemmas, this presentation invites critical thinking-feeling about issues of research, voice, power, and politics across the boundaries of species and being.
SESSION 2
RIVER, CLOUD, FISH, STONE
— A role-play moderated by Maud van den Beuken
11:00 — 12:30
This conversation is an imaginary role-play exercise of voicing an entity inside the river’s landscape. Based on the theory Parliament of Things by Bruno Latour, we explore the longevity of a stone at the bottom of the river, in relation to the fish, in relation to the water management we bring as a human kind. What can we learn from ones perspectives? To what extent are we, as participants, able to let go of human interests and embody ourselves into the river's voice? This conversation is a learning environment for acknowledging our entangled and interdependent relationship to the the river's ecology.
SESSION 3
DELIBERATION: SEDIMENTS, CONFLUENCES, AND OUTFLOW
13:30 — 15:00
A sharing session to harvest and deliberate towards future actions of THE HOUSE OF RIVERS. Moderated by Regina Hugli and Emanuele Fantini.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
⌀ Date: Thursday 21 of March
⌀ Doors open: 08:30 – 09:00
⌀ Symposium: 09:00 – 15:00
⌀ Language: English
⌀ Lunch is included with an event ticket
⌀ Free admission, R.S.V.P. required
⌀ Location: RADIUS Water Tower, Kalverbos 22
⌀ Please note that the location is not wheelchair accessible
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
⌀ Gabriela Cuadrado Quesada is a Senior Lecturer/Researcher of Water Rights and Justice at IHE Delft, which she joined in 2017. Her research and teaching activities focus on the legal and institutional dimensions of water at both local and national levels, the role of community organisations in using legal instruments to promote environmental justice and sustainable use of water, the connections between community water practices and legal instruments, the relations between environmental destruction, food production and water pollution, as well as the linkages between international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international refugee law.
⌀ Susanne Schmeier is the Head of the Water Governance Department and an Associate Professor of Water Law and Diplomacy at IHE Delft. Her research, teaching and advisory activities focus on the legal and institutional dimensions of water resources governance at both (sub-)national and the transboundary levels, the role of agreements and basin organisations, negotiation and conflict resolution processes and tools, as well as the sustainable management of ecosystems linked to water resources (including the management of mountain eco-regions and source-to-sea approaches as well as biodiversity).
⌀ Radhika Mulay has a MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford (UK). She has worked as an environmental researcher on an international academic-activist research program ACKNOWL-EJ at Kalpavriksh, Pune. From 2020-22 she worked as a Senior Researcher on research projects and was one of the authors of the book: The Heads and Tails of Ganga River – the Cryosphere and the Delta (published by INTACH-Delhi) at Gomukh Trust, Pune. Currently, she is based at the Centre for Water Research, IISER-Pune and is exploring her interests in the field of water research. Her unique training as a water researcher and a dancer has enabled her to understand and work around water-related issues not just from a scientific lens but also from an artistic perspective.
⌀ Pauline Münch is part of the project AnthropoScenes which works at the intersection of science and theatre to connect different audiences to the future of water in Berlin-Brandenburg. With innovative and collaborative formats, AnthropoScenes aims to make sustainable water futures public. Pauline holds a BA in Psychology from the University of British Columbia and an MSc. in Food Security from the University of Edinburgh. In the past, she has linked transdisciplinary research with creative forms of communication to produce visual, written and audio projects.
⌀ Carlota Houart is a PhD researcher at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, within the ERC-funded research project Riverhood. Her research focuses on multispecies justice in rivers, and she is working with the Piatúa River in the Ecuadorian Amazon and with the River Meuse in the Netherlands. As an ecofeminist political ecologist, Carlota is particularly interested in exploring questions such as: Who are the voices of a river? How can we include the perspectives, needs, and interests of other-than-human beings (e.g. animals, plants, rivers themselves) in political decision-making on river management and governance? Why are issues of power and politics across species boundaries important? And how can we do ethical, engaged, and embodied research with other-than-human beings as research subjects?
⌀ Maud van den Beuken characterises her artistic practice as an adventurer and fieldworker by an investigative attitude in which she measures, scans and maps the landscape on a 1:1 scale. Over the past six years, she has been specifically studying rivers and their water management. By following rivers on foot but also working with various experts such as ministries, ports and dredging contractors, she has been implementing poetics within the field of water management. Several rivers have been the focus so far such as the Kaveri River in India, the Mississippi River in the United States, the Elbe in Germany and the Meuse in the Netherlands. Her work positions itself both within the formal art context through sculptures, installations, maps, audio walks and videos, but also explores contexts beyond such as cartographic archives, public spaces, collaborations with municipalities, scientists, dredging companies and universities. Her work has been exhibited internationally at a.o. EENWERK Gallery in Amsterdam (NL), United Nations Water Conference 2023 in New York (US), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam (NL), Jan van Eyck in Maastricht (NL), EIGHT/ΤΟ ΟΧΤΩ in Athens (GR) and the Special Collections department of Utrecht University Library (NL).
⌀ Regina Hügli works both as a professional photographer for commissions and as an artist, curator and organiser of interdisciplinary projects. She graduated from Zurich University of Arts in the field of photography in 2002, focusing on analogue and digital photographic techniques and theoretic approaches to the medium. Moreover she studied Comparing Science of Religion and Art History at the Universities of Berne and Zurich. In her personal work, Regina Hügli uses photographic and film techniques to explore questions of identity and memory, transformation, transition. She works both with a documentary and experimental approach.
⌀ Emanuele Fantini is Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Water Politics and Communication at IHE. As a political scientist he is interested in exploring spaces and practices of collaboration under challenging circumstances in water distribution. His research focuses on the role of culture—media, religion, nationalism, knowledge production, etc.—and political organisations like the state or social movements, in facilitating or disrupting such forms of collaboration.
