Asking the reader to uncover and unfold each spread to reveal its content, this zine reminds us through these tearing and unravelling actions to care for how we engage with its pages and content. Functioning as a conceptual map that borrows graphic languages from natural textures and topographies, it becomes a landscape of practices that can help us navigate the sometimes frightening reality of our climate presents and futures.
Reflecting on this process, researcher Orestis Kollyris, in conversation with graphic designer Akash Sheshadri, discuss the way the design intersects with the works and their personal perspective on the importance of artistic research.
Finally, a sticker set invites us to spread visual climate imaginaries into other pages and surfaces. Rather than a compilation of finished works, this publication is a moment of reflection on the ongoing practices of its contributors. It is a window into the questions at the heart of the Climate Imaginaries at Sea programme and an invitation to engage with the urgency of the topics it addresses and strive to keep making waves.
The zine “Making Waves #2” was launched on the 23rd of April 2024 at VOX-POP, during the Climate Imaginaries at Sea Festival.
Email info@arias.amsterdam for a free copy.
About Climate Imaginaries at Sea
Climate Imaginaries at Sea speculates possible futures in and around water through various artistic and participatory research practices. Three collaborating research groups bring the project forward: Art & Spatial Praxis at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (GRA), the Lectorate of the Academy of Theatre and Dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK) and the Visual Methodologies Collective at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS). The research groups work in partnership with ARIAS, a platform for artistic research in Amsterdam, and a network of partners that includes Tolhuistuin, the Institute for Sound & Vision and CoECI – Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation.
How can we liberate the imagination from recurring stereotypes that understand climate change as something from the future, far away, affecting others, while so many people around the world already live with its devastating impact? How can material research, interspecies perspectives and indigenous water and climate knowledges help us form new ways of relating to the climate emergency?
These are some of the questions that initiated this second volume of “Making Waves,” in which artists and researchers create micro-worlds that invite us into their research and processes. Exploring the role of imagination as a facilitator between generations and across species, geographies and material worlds, Amanda Piña, Carlo De Gaetano, Janine Armin, and Müge Yilmaz’s contributions open channels for understanding different facets of life with rising seas.
On October 5th, The Research Group Art & Spatial Praxis organised a workshop with the Brackish Collective and a lecture with artist Müge Yilmaz on salt and the effects of salinisation of earth.
Together with the Brackish Collective, participants experienced a culinary tasting session that intertwined knowledge of coastal vegetation in The Netherlands with future (im)possibilities. At the Sandberg Institute’s kitchen, the group focused on halophytes and salt-resistant plants found in the coastal areas and dunes while sensorially exploring an array of these plants like sea asparagus, dune roses, sea purslane, sea buckthorn, and red clover. Each plant represented a unique taste of the brackish landscapes, emphasising the incredible potential within nature’s offerings. This workshop was a vibrant fusion of art, gastronomy, and the natural world, inspiring us to explore further the intriguing possibilities at this intersection.
Following the workshop with Brackish, the group delved into the critical impacts of salinisation on soil quality and architectural structures, a concern exacerbated by rising sea levels and ground subsidence, through Müge Yilmaz’s lecture. The lecture highlighted innovative solutions like cultivating salt-tolerant crops and halophytes, bio-saline farming and aquaculture in flood-prone areas. Besides, it looked at the cultural belief systems surrounding salt and its speculative potential in a feminist, science-fiction sense. Yilmaz’s research aims to document agricultural endeavours alongside cultural practices, offering fresh perspectives on our relationship with rising sea levels.