River Stories
Over the past months, artists, scientists and residents explored a tiny area nestled between canals, boats and trees in the middle of the Spreewald. Their research culminated in multimedia installations, theatre performances and audio walks. Find all the works as well as the artists, scientists and projects involved in the digital gallery below.
EVENT
The RambaZamba Theater brought an entertaining and engaging production to the stage where sci-fi and Greek mythology intersected with water shortages and climate change.
EVENT
At the International Literature Festival Berlin, the Theatre of the Anthropocene organised an event with the text "Das Wasser" by author Kathrin Röggla. Actors read excerpts and joined a panel discussion with Röggla and CliWaC researchers afterwards.
EVENT
As a joint collaboration with the Mosse Lectures, the event led participants along the two rivers to explore Berlin from a hydrological, historical and literary perspective. Artists and scientists provided input at different stations along the way.
INSTALLATION
Rivers have a subtle quality of communicating with us: through lights, colors, sounds and movements of water. Through them, we reflect, remember and act. However, when we begin to consider the future of rivers, these points of connection are often guided by logics of human-driven engineering and technology and the perspectives of waterways are ignored. We want to venture an experiment: this participatory installation seeks to create spaces for conversations and collaborations with the Spree. Visitors can leave audio, written and drawn messages to the Spree - to better see her as an active stakeholder in the negotiation process for our future…
Camila Ivana Vargas Pardo, Omar Sherif, Desirée Hetzel, Zora Ritz, Patricia Usée, Pauline Münch
RESEARCH
A cube of light – nine, stele-like structures rise vertically, narrow on one side, tapering to an elongated paddle blade on the other. These so-called 'Rudel' are traditionally made of ash wood and serve as a means of transport on the water canals and rivers in the Spreewald. For the installation "Hydrophilic artefact for an archaeology of the future", Surreal Labor transformed the 4.20 m long paddles into filigree light objects that can be freely arranged in the room. The recessed light strips not only mark the current water level of Raddusch's natural harbour (2 metres, as of 09/23), but also serve as an elegiac testimony to a present that – in view of the increasing water scarcity and the dwindling level of the Spree – may soon be history.
EVENT
Open Air | Our Water Future
At the Long Night of the Sciences 2022, there was an open-air concert by musician Kevin Mooney that featured his re-imagined shanties about the Anthropocene. Visitors could also participate in activities such as a blind water taste test and chat with CliWaC scientists.
RESEARCH
As part of the special feature The Frontlines of Environmental Politics in Europe in the Journal Europe, Pauline Münch and Jörg Niewöhner analyze the challenges facing water in the Berlin-Brandeburg region and potentials of building sustainable water futures through art and transdisciplinary collaborations.
EVENT
Inspired by the Berlin salons of the 18th century, the event series filled with performances, art and science took place at the Humboldt Labor in the Humboldt Forum. The performative-discursive evenings explored the most pressing water challenges of the 21st century.
ONLINE WORKSHOP
Within the Stadtlabor Online Seminar Series “The values of multimodal projects“, AnthropoScenes shared how multimodality features throughout the project as a mode of research and intervention through transdisplinary work and artistic performances.
EVENT
A pop up within a shopping centre captured passerbys with art works, activities and exchanges with scientists. It sparked discussions about water from different vantage points and began the process of making sustainable water futures public.