Water surrounds and permeates us. It runs like veins through our planet, connecting us and making all life on Earth possible. As our planet has entered an unprecedented human-made environmental crisis, Water is increasingly perceived as a threat to existence. From melting glaciers and sea level rise to storm surges, drought and contamination, Water figures prominently in environmental emergencies. These climatic changes and intensified weather patterns are the consequences of human actions and they affect us all. Yet, the responsibility for the crisis and the experience of its most drastic impacts are unevenly distributed. Today, formerly colonized people and marginalized communities live at the forefront of the climate crisis, while having least contributed to its causes.
The exhibition Water Messages approaches the MARKK’s historical collections as a repository of ecological knowledges, skills, and Water stories from which we can learn in facing environmental challenges. Water serves as a source of sustenance and is the focus of cultural and artistic expressions that articulate beliefs and values defining human relationships to Water. The exhibition relates these Water knowledges to contemporary Water protection and climate justice movements formulated by communities that are most affected by environmental crises today. Their Water struggles and resistance to extractive economies are inextricably linked with concerns about self-determination and cultural survival. This exhibition is an invitation to listen to the messages of the Water and its stewards and protectors. Let us jointly imagine more caring planetary futures in which human interest and profit are no longer privileged but decisions are made to the benefit of all living beings.
* Water and Land are capitalized throughout these texts to acknowledge that in many worldviews Water is sacred, Water is ancestor and Water is an entity that humans are in reciprocal relationship with.
Photo Credit: Paul Schimweg
In order to challenge the modus operandi within the museum and to resonate with the exhibition’s underlying theme of climate justice, we set ourselves the challenge to create Water Messages almost entirely through the re-use of materials and furniture from the previous exhibition. Our ambition was to reconceptualise the museum space as a watershed; a territory where surface waters converge and where the rules of navigation are neither entirely derived from terra firma nor from maritime knowledges. The existing architectures were submerged and drained by a design approach that encourages visitors to meander and create a new order out of the room’s antediluvian past.
Whilst the design process brought the deluge to the museum, it simultaneously leaked out beyond its walls. We established connections with local groups in Wilhelmsburg and used public workshops in the Stadteilschule Wilhelmsburg, at the flea market of the Wilhelmsburger Zinnwerke, and with young people at Beruf und Integration Elbinseln to engage with residents about their relationships with Water, given the neighborhood’s vulnerability to flood risks. We particularly thank Marco Antonio Reyes Loredo and Martha Starke of the Wilhelmsburger Zinnwerke and Wissam Alali, Roodie George, Patrice Helmich, Alexander Enkrisch, Imam Taner, Martin Lingos, and Thomas Nettelmann of Beruf und Integration Elbinseln for collaborating with us in the process.
Photo Credit: Paul Schimweg
Photo Credit: Paul Schimweg
Photo Credit: Paul Schimweg
Photo Credit: Paul Schimweg
Photo Credit: Paul Schimweg
Photo Credit: Paul Schimweg
Photo Credit: Paul Schimweg