Water is in many ways an enigma.
Puddle, trickle, stream, river, estuary, sea, ocean
Aquifer, springs, oasis, wells
Ice, water, vapour.
Too much water, not enough water…
Charlotte Still and Clare Whistler ‘Underwateredge’ performance during ‘Water-Worlds’ programme at the RGS conference.
Water-Worlds brings together artist projects that are working with eventful and continually reforming water worlds.
Whilst we depend on water for our survival, it also threatens to drown us. Despite the seas and oceans covering 90% of the earths ‘surface’, these vast tracts of water remain in many ways unfathomable and represent the last vast tracts of the unknown within our immediate world. It has been said we know more about outer space than we do the oceans. Our relentless quest to understand, fix and arguably control the planet on which we live extends to the oceans. Whilst technology is allowing us to map the ocean depths in ways hitherto un-thought of, it also encapsulates new political issues that need to be critically addressed. Anthropogenic sea level rise presents very real threats to living with, across and under water with an estimated 40% of the world’s population at risk from rising sea levels, likely to impact disproportionately on those societies with the least potential resilience.
Water-Worlds was at the Royal Geographical Society’s annual international conference 2015 (the third part of a series of Wet Geographies sessions), with a film screening, exhibition, theatre performance, performative talks and presentations, and finally a round table discussion chaired by Prof Phil Steinberg.
Find the RGS Water-Worlds programme here.
We are always interested in other projects – art projects and projects working between/across art and other disciplines – so please get in touch if your work has synergy with what you see here!
Water-Worlds 