Berlin Water Bodies
Urban waterscapes & situated reflections
This session invited participants to encounter Berlin’s waterscape in its different forms. Beginning at the entry of the TA T, participants was planned to walk together along the Panke River towards Invalidenpark. However, due to the rain, a series of five sessions were offered in TA T, gaining short inputs from invited speakers. At the stations, urban historian Timothy Moss, city ecologist Beate Witzel (Stadtmuseum Berlin), human geographer Friederike Landau-Donnelly, and social hydrologist Tobias Krüger guided reflections on topics ranging from canalisation, climate, and rainwater retention to collective embodied poetry at the “Sinking Wall.” Within small breakout groups, participants moved through the stations in three blocks of 20 minutes each, with 10 minutes walking time between sessions. The aim was to draw connections between urban waters and the interdisciplinary research and practices explored in earlier sessions.
© Joshua Meissner
Speakers Bio
Beate Witzel
Beate Witzel is a biologist specializing in ecology. At the Stadtmuseum Berlin, she serves as thematic curator for urban ecology and head of the geological collection. A central focus of her work lies in designing exhibitions, guided tours, and workshops that make natural science topics accessible to a broad public.
Friederike Landau-Donnelly
Dr. Friederike Landau-Donnelly (*1989, she/they) is an intersectional political theorist, urban sociologist and cultural geographer. She is a visiting professor for Social and Cultural Geography at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. She is current working on a monograph on conflictual museums in Canada and India. Friederike writes on artistic and affective activism, spatial theory, art in public space (especially murals) and contested cultural policy. Friederike has co-edited Handbuch Kulturpolitik (Handbook of Cultural Policy, Springer, 2024), Konfliktuelle Kulturpolitik (Conflictual Cultural Policy, Springer, 2023), [Un]Grounding – Post-Foundational Geographies (transcript, 2021). Friederike produces zines and publishes poetry as #PoeticAcademic: https://friederikelandau.com/poeticacademic/
Timothy Moss
Timothy Moss is a Senior Researcher at the Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys) at the Humboldt University of Berlin and Honorary Professor at the Leibniz University Hannover. For 30 years he has been researching urban energy and water systems from historical and social science perspectives. Tim's research is distinctive for connecting historical studies of infrastructure with contemporary debates on sociotechnical and urban transitions.
Tobias Krüger
Tobias Krüger is Director of IRI THESys and Professor of Hydrology and Society at Humboldt-Universität´s Geography Department. His interdisciplinary research is at the intersection of hydrology and critical social science. Recent projects tackle the changing water cycle in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, inequalities around hydropower dams in the Magdalena and Sinú basins in Colombia and decision-support modelling for water governance in North-East India. All of his projects involve some level of public or stakeholder participation, outreach or connection with art-based formats.