Imagining Hydrcommons Cultures: Interdisciplinary Research and Curatorial Practices Between Rivers

Abstract

This article confronts the problems affecting the contemporary hydrosphere by proposing the global need to fairer, more empathic and sustainable water cultures. The objectives of the text are: 1. Theorize the hydrocommons as a conceptual framework for curatorial practices that can contribute to this task by creating public platforms that depart from artistic practices, interdisciplinary research, and engagement activities; 2. Demonstrate through curatorial projects by the international network entre—ríos how these principles have informed artist residencies and collaborative processes. The methodology comprises a discussion of “liquid ecologies” (Blackmore & Gómez, 2020) as a critical tool to think the entanglements of bodies of water with diverse historical and contemporary forms of ecological degradation, socioenvironmental conflicts and cognitive injustice. Next, it proposes the “hydrocommons” as a term capable of coining and imagining more conscientious and empathic dynamics and ways of relating through water, through an assemblage of multidisciplinary perspectives that sociopolitical, epistemological, legal, and aesthetic dimensions to this emergent critical-imaginative a language. The second part of the article explains how the curatorial hypotheses of entre—ríos emerged out of my research into “hydropower” and the hydrocommons, the curatorial turn toward ecological agendas, and artist residency projects I organised at the University of Essex. Finally, the article describes two collaborative curatorial projects by entre—ríos to detail in situ and digital dynamics activated to instigate critical and sensory connections to the problematics shaping bodies of water in Latin America. The article closes with a brief overview of the conceptual cornerstones of hydrocommons cultures and a reflection on challenges facing this emerging field.