hydrofutures
hydropolitics
hydrologics


This is a study on the intersections of water politics with coloniality, privilege, and power. Influenced by Astrida Neimanis’ ideas in Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology in bringing environmental issues and feminist and queer theories together, this is a project that begins as a research into water cultures and issues.

I am exploring the mapping of race and incorporeality within the social, political and environmental implications of water to address the persistent issues around scarcity and entitlement.

This research gathers from the knowledge and lived experiences of farmers, geographers, environmentalists and activist groups.


2020 - ongoing





The Qanat resideny group at the visit to Water Museum




Part 1 - Hydrofutures: Restitution
QANAT, LE18 Marrakech
17 Feb  - 7 Mar 2020

I spent 3 weeks with The QANAT collective, a curatorial multidisciplinary research project at the  LE18 in the city of Marrakech.

Together with artists from around the region, UK and Europe, we had a series of talks, workshops and site visits to critically rethinking the legacies embedded in traditional systems of water management,

We made site visits to the Water Museum and the Palmgrove to understand the traditional ways of water collection and distribution through the ancient aquifiers of khettaras.

Artists Shayma Nadar and Callum Copley led in workshops using writing and speculative fiction to reimagine current politics around water and its possible arrangements in future.

Khettaras found at The Palmgrove work as an underground water system and go as deep as 20 meters.

The maintenance of golf courses, gardens of hotels, resorts and private villas and growing agriculture have gotten the best of this ancestral system and the groundwater table have dropped so far that these water resources are no longer available. 
Site Visit led by geographer Thierry Ruf, urban planner Rim Mejd and Mohamed Lihyaoui gave us an understanding of water-related struggles and political-economic transformations in Morocco.
A visit to Tamslohte, one of the last working khettara system in Morrocco - the ancestral hydraulic heritage of underground tunnel.
Thierry Ruf showing the water channels amidst developing residential areas that are now disused and filled with rubbish.




We engaged in drawing and writing exercises, short readings, discussions and movie screenings to explore Sci-Fi and its historical connections to social and political movements across the world.


The residency was closed by a public evening of participative role-playing, listening and reading sessions, as well as the release of the Hydrofutures: Marrakech zine.

click for info on LE18 website