PERFORM – Performing Water

The ethical questions raised by water – its availability, its pollution, its infrastructural dimension for globalized trade – highlight that water is more than a metaphor of thinking practices. It is a site of deep contention and political crisis, as currencies and currents, ecology and economy flow together or collide. By exploring water as metaphor, water as infrastructure, and water as basic element, this project will reflect critically on the function and circulation of this unique medium in various cultures, examining its force in fostering collective imaginaries. By following the stream of thought water traces through mythology, immigration, ecology, new media, and other fields, we will discover how water offers a way to reflect on the vulnerability and improbable resiliency of the Anthropocene in a way that combines performativity and critical thinking.

Whereas a growing number of research projects devoted to water infrastructure, supply, access, and geo-political tensions as well as eco-literature are enriching research around this object of study, the representation and performance of water in the visual and performing arts would profit from further investigation.

The project is divided into 3 distinct thematic approaches:

• Mythologies
• Ecologies
• Currents and Currencies