Three distinctive artistic research studios embark on a speculative journey into potential futures entwined with water, employing diverse artistic and participatory research practices. The in-process research projects are generously shown alongside a video by Leanne Betasomsake Simpson with sammy chien of Chimerik 似不像 and ansley simpson. Müge Yilmaz takes up a ‘Material Inquiry’ with Travis Geertruida, Carlos Irijalba, Janis Rafa, and Jun Zhang into salt, Mikki Stelder, Dorothy Blokland and Joy Brandsma examine ‘global South perspectives’, and Janine Armin with Zigmunds Lapsa and Yashaswini Raghunandan, Femke Dekker, and Carlo De Gaetano enact ‘Interspecies Imaginaries’.

The artist-researchers and their collaborators navigate, among others, the following questions:

How can artists create connections to indigenous and global South climate knowledges across multiple cultural perspectives where the consequences of rising sea levels are already a reality?

How can we understand the impact of rising sea levels in relation to housing, clothing and soil through material artistic research?

And how can interspecies imaginaries help form different relationships with rising seas beyond considering them as merely a threat?

Echoing the sentiments of author Amitav Ghosh, who contends that “the climate crisis is also a crisis of the imagination,” this exhibition stands testament to the vital role imagination plays in envisioning the future of climate change. It is an indispensable tool for embracing change in our personal lives, environments, and political landscapes.

19-25 April: Bradwolff Projects
Open everyday: 12.00-18.00
free entry
free tickets for the opening (19 April, 17.00 - 20.00): eventix.shop/kuaujj4j

Studio Encounters on Water invites you to explore the myriad ways in which artists interpret, imagine and question our relationship with rising sea levels.

Water shapes futures, and artistic visions challenge the boundaries of today's conversations on sea level rise. Climate Imaginaries at Sea invites you to speculate on possible futures in and around water, explored through diverse artistic and participatory research practices.

A year has passed since we invited a number of artists to envision futures impacted by rising sea levels. Over the past year, their research projects have delved into the nuances often overlooked in mainstream climate discourse, focusing on material, indigenous, intergenerational, and interspecies narratives.

Beyond a showcase, this gathering is an opportunity to connect with peers, collaborators, and the curious. It's also the chance to engage with the practices of artists who have recently joined us and with those who will collaborate with us in the coming year. Join lecture-performances, screenings, discussions, and behind-the-scenes insights into their research and artistic practices.

You will have the opportunity to engage with the work of involved artists: Müge Yılmaz, Joy Brandsma, Dorothy Blokland, Carlo De Gaetano, Janine Armin, and Femke Dekker. Keynote speaker, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, will employ Michi Saagiig Nishnaabe consciousness to deconstruct the present moment and explore what it means to truly listen to water. Furthermore, Marialena Marouda, Claudine Arendt, the Loom collective, and Kim Spierenburg will contribute through a short presentations and the showing of a short animation, respectively.

Following the open studio programme at Perdu, we extend a warm invitation to all guests to join us at VOX-POP for a convivial gathering. This will include the launch of our second zine “Making Waves,” and an exhibition featuring the works of Gerrit Rietveld Academie students in collaboration with artist and researcher Müge Yılmaz. We welcome everyone to come and celebrate the culmination of our festival with us.

23 April
10.00 - 16.30: Perdu
17.00 - 19.00: VOX-POP
free tickets here: eventix.shop/kuaujj4j

Join the 'The Power of Water' workshop, led by theater maker Dorothy Blokland. Experience the photos, taken by children from Suriname capturing climate change, in a sensory way. Blokland guides you through theater and writing exercises, to create special texts that reflect each photo. This workshop is part of 'The Power of Water', a project that investigates the relationship between climate change and the trans-Atlantic route. Participate and discover Suriname in a unique way in the world of 'The Power of Water'.

19 April, 14.00 - 15.00: VOX-POP
free tickets here: eventix.shop/kuaujj4j

Join us from April 22nd to 25th at VOX-POP Amsterdam for an insightful exhibition Salaxis I, showcasing the collaborative efforts between students of the Textile and Architectural Design programs at Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Müge Yılmaz. Over the past months, students have delved into the intricate realm of speculative research, exploring the critical impacts of sea levels rising and salinisation of soil under Müge Yılmaz's guidance.

Through engaging in monthly activities such as field trips, workshops, and material research, students have developed a series of drawings and prints centered around their world building exercises of a fictional island called Salaxis. Müge's lecture at the outset of this research journey shed light on innovative proposals to environmental challenges posed by rising sea levels and ground subsidence. From cultivating salt-tolerant crops to exploring the speculative potential of salty water in a futuristic and science fiction based context the exhibition offers unexpected perspectives on our relationship with the changing environment.

22-25 April: VOX-POP
Open Mon-Fri: 9.00-17.00
free entry
free tickets for the opening (22 April, 16.30 - 18.00): eventix.shop

The album Theory of Ice (2021) is a powerful act of world-building and creative sovereignty by Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg-writer, scholar, and musician Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Leanne has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. During this evening, Leanne, together with Nick Ferrio on guitar, will share her musical storytelling. The album departs from Leanne’s poetic inquiries into our relationship with water, and her cover of Willie Dunn’s “I Pity the Country” (1971). Listen to the album here. The evening is moderated by Chihiro Geuzebroek. With subtle calls for revolution, Theory of Ice invites you to reimagine “your relationship to the people and places that keep you alive”.

25 April, 20.30 - 22.30: Tolhuistuin
tickets (€ 7,50): tolhuistuin.nl

In this exhibition of high-fashion portraits generated with Midjourney, Carlo De Gaetano shows us a future of more-than-human intimacy in a changing climate. By playfully queering our notion of the sea, the portraits soften the boundaries between human and aquatic life.

15 – 26 April, FLOOR Wibauthuis
free entry

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 Academy (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.

Starting in 2023, the three newly developed artistic research studios invited artists to develop artistic imaginaries that address rising sea levels. The artistic research studios pay particular attention to perspectives often missing from mainstream climate change debates: material, indigenous, and interspecies inquiry. Each studio works without predetermined disciplinary boundaries through practice-led artistic research and written and non-textual forms such as installations, sounds, movements, images and objects. In addition, students are actively involved in the research by developing imaginative engagements with rising sea levels as both a future prospect and a present reality in various parts of the world.