Confluence of European Water Bodies

Van 22 – 24 september 2023 vond de eerste Confluence of European Water Bodies plaats bij de Mar Menor in Murcia, Spanje. Tijdens de conferentie ontmoetten waterlichamen uit heel Europa elkaar voor een interculturele uitwisseling over de representatie van water in Europa’s culturele, politieke en juridische domein. Momenteel werken we aan een nieuwe editie van de Confluence of European Water Bodies, daarover snel meer!

Politieke ruimte voor wateremancipatie

De meest prangende ecologische vraagstukken vandaag zijn grens-, individu- en soort overschrijdend. Toch benaderen we deze problemen nog altijd grotendeels vanuit de natiestaat. We bevinden ons midden in de grootste massa-extinctie sinds 65 miljoen jaar, maar wie is hiervoor verantwoordelijk? Landen zijn alleen verantwoording verschuldigd aan elkaar, politici alleen aan hun kiezers, grote bedrijven alleen aan hun aandeelhouders. Niet-menselijke en toekomstige levens zijn onvoldoende en ineffectief vertegenwoordigd. Om de representatiecrisis in onze democratie in Europa te agenderen organiseren we de Conference of European Water Bodies. Wateren uit heel Europa komen hier bijeen om samen cruciale stappen te zetten richting wateremancipatie. De conferentie vindt plaats bij de Spaanse binnenzee de Mar Menor, het eerste Europese ecosysteem dat in september 2022 rechtspersoonlijkheid kreeg.

Deelnemende waterlichamen

De conferentie werd georganiseerd door de lagune van Venetië, vertegenwoordigd door TBA21/ Ocean Space; de Mar Menor, vertegenwoordigd door ILP Mar Menor en de Noordzee, vertegenwoordigd door de Ambassade van de Noordzee.

De deelnemende waterlichamen zijn: Akerselva (NO), Drina (SRB), Klarälven (SE), Loire (FR), Mar Menor (ES), Mediterranean Sea, Moraca and Tara rivers (ME), North Sea (NL), Pek (SRB), Rhône (CH), Senne (BE), Spree (DE), Tejo (PRT), Venice Lagoon (IT), Vistula (PL), Reuss (CH) en Viskan & Lake Vättern (SE)

Symbolische reis

Symbolisch startpunt van de gezamenlijk reis naar Mar Menor was Brussel. Hier verzamelden de wateren samen met GARN (Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature) om met collectieve stem een manifest voor te dragen voor het Europees Parlement, begeleid door een ritueel van Erena Rhöse, een Māori-vrouw afkomstig uit Aotearoa (Nieuw-Zeeland) en woonachtig in Zweden. Erena is hoedster van inheemse kennis, dokter in de traditionele Maori-geneeskunde, professor Ecosofie aan de Universiteit van Karlstad, Zweden en ambassadeur van Earth Rights. Erena spreekt over haar verwantschap met de Whanganui-rivier het eerste ecosysteem ter wereld met rechtspersoonlijkheid, die zij beschouwt als een tupuna (levende voorouder).

diplomatic suitcase

Tijdens de conferentiedagen, die deels plaatsvond in het gemeentehuis van Los Alcazares, deels in het veld, stond de vormgeving en samenstelling van de Diplomatic Suitcase centraal, een presentatiemodel waarbinnen de verschillende wateren zichzelf representeren met artefacten, documentatie, beeld, data en verhalen. Na de conferentie zal de Diplomatic Suitcase op reis gaan en op verschillende plekken in Europa uitgepakt, tentoongesteld en geactiveerd worden.

Ceremoniële publieke finnisage

Op zondag 24 september 2024 sloot de conferentie af op de Plaza de Espejo van Los Alcazares met een voor iedereen toegankelijk publiek programma. In de ochtend was er een river / sea walk onder leiding van de Natural Contract Lab. Tegen het middaguur begon de Hermanamiento (sisterhood) met een ritueel van de Polish Rivers Sisters.

Maak hieronder kennis met de wateren en hun afgevaardigden!

This project could be realised thanks to the Creative Industries Fund NL. Speciale dank aan GARN (Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature) and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice: NICHE (THE NEW INSTITUTE Center for Environmental Humanities) and the UNESCO Chair of Water, Heritage and Sustainable Development.

Graphics: Eva van Bemmelen

“The vast expanse of the world ocean, the dominant feature of planet earth, has remained at the edges of our history... Dry land is presumed the norm... Even events that took place at sea are often narrated as though the ocean is flat, land-like plane... The time has come to put the ocean at the centre of our histories, not replace terrestrial history but to add to the history of the ocean itself to the other important histories we tell”

Rozwadowski, 2008

Mar Menor

The Mar Menor is a 135 km2 coastal lagoon in southeastern region of Murcia in Spain. It is the largest saltwater lagoon in Europe, separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a strip of land called La Manga del Mar Menor. The Mar Menor is in a serious state of eutrophication due to the nutrients it receives, mainly from intensive agriculture in the surrounding area. Other impacts also contribute to its deterioration: excessive construction on its shores, mineral inputs washed in by rainfall, a large number of marinas that act as barriers to marine currents and filling in of artificial beaches. In 2016 the waters of the Mar Menor turned dark green due to a phytoplankton bloom. In 2019 and 2021 tons of fish were found dead on the shores of the Mar Menor due to anoxia. These episodes led tens of thousands of people to demonstrate in the streets of Cartagena and Murcia calling on the regional and central governments to take measures at source to prevent the lagoon from collapsing. Although some actions have been initiated to stop the problem, since spring 2022 there has been a huge development of filamentous algae which is a cause for concern.

Legal Personality for Mar Menor

The petition for Legal Personality for the Mar Menor (Iniciativa de Legislación Popular, ILP) was initiated by law professors Teresa Vicente and Eduardo Salazar and supported by a number of different groups and voluntary organizations in Spain. The Banderas Negras organized in the streets collecting signatures and holding demonstrations. Now that the law to grant the Mar Menor legal personality has been enacted they formed the association AMARME. The Pacto por el Mar Menor is a platform for various professionals to inform the public about the ecology of the Mar Menor and put pressure on the government with legal complaints.

ECOLOGISTS IN ACTION#

Ecologists in Action of the Region of Murcia has been fighting tirelessly for decades for the conservation and recovery of the regional territory in general and of its valuable threatened ecosystems in particular. For years, the NGO has been working hard to counteract, among other things, the administrative negligence in environmental matters and the fallacies surrounding the pathetic management of water – and other natural resources – in the Region.

Ecologistas en Acción carries out its work within the framework of what is known as Social Ecologism, broadening the focus to social problems that are associated with environmental problems, since both have the same origin: the unsustainable and predatory model of globalised development. The organisation, which was formed by the union of more than 300 small local groups, always seeks the confluence between the movements that fight against environmental problems.

Teresa Conesa

Mar Menor / Banders Negras

Teresa Vicente Giménez

Professor of Philosophy of Law

EDUARDO SALAZAR ORTUÑO

Environmental lawyer

Isabel Rubio

Mar Menor / Pacto por el Mar Menor

Natalia Llorente Nosti

Mar Menor / Ecologistas en Acción

Pedro Luengo Michel

Mar Menor / Ecologistas en Acción

De Noordzee

De Noordzee is geologisch gezien een jonge zee. Ze ontstond aan het einde van de laatste ijstijd, het Weichselien zo ongeveer 11.000 jaar geleden. Tijdens deze ijstijd waren de Noordzee en veel van de Britse eilanden bedekt met gletsjerijs en lag de zeespiegel ongeveer 120 m lager. Aan het einde van de laatste ijstijd werd het klimaat warmer, het enorme gewicht van het ijs nam af en de zeespiegel steeg.

Kale woestijn

Hard substraat is harde ondergrond. Veel zeeleven is afhankelijk van dit harde substraat. Vroeger in de Noordzee kwam het harde substraat voor in de vorm van bijvoorbeeld stenen, oesterbanken, klei en moorlog (oud veen). Er was wel zo’n 27.000 km2 aan oesterrif. Op dit moment is nog 1.5 % van de Noordzee hard substraat en dat bestaat uit boeien, wrakken, boorplatforms en windmolens. Dat is artifcieel hard substraat dus en essentieel voor veel zeeleven. Ze gebruiken het harde substraat als aanhechtingsplaats of als huis. 50% van de biomassa in de Noordzee zit op of rondom hard substraat.

De Noordzeebodem heeft vooral de laatste 60 jaar onder invloed gestaan van intensieve visserij. Met als gevolg dat het benthos (het leven in, op en net boven de bodem) hoofdzakelijk bestaat uit pioniergemeenschappen en de Noordzeebodem is veranderd in een kale woestijn.

De belangen van het zeeleven

Ondanks dat de Noordzee 60% van het Nederlandse grondgebied beslaat en daarmee de grootste publieke Nederlandse ruimte is, is de zee nauwelijks deel van ons Nederlandse en Europese sociale en politieke bewustzijn. Tegelijkertijd staat de Noordzee steeds meer onder druk. Niet alleen door bestaande fossiele brandstofwinning, transport en visserij, maar ook door toekomstige projecten als windmolenparken en energie-eilanden die allemaal hun deel opeisen van de Noordzee, zonder dat de zee daar zelf zeggenschap over heeft. In 2022 gaat de biodiversiteit van de Noordzee verder achteruit en is minder dan 1% (0,3%) van haar oppervlakte daadwerkelijk beschermd.

Leon Lapa Pereira

Creative producent Conference of European Waters

Christiane Bosman

Directeur communicatie & publieksprogramma

Thijs Middeldorp

Algemeen directeur

Harpo ’t Hart

Directeur artistiek programma

Carolijn Terwindt

Curator Conference of European Waters

The Venice Lagoon

The city of Venice rises from the waters of the Mediterranean’s largest Lagoon, an ecosystem that has been balanced between natural instability and man-made adaptations throughout centuries – with early hydraulic interventions dating as far as 1400 AD. The lagoon provides essential ecosystem services, from being a natural carbon sink to sustaining biodiversity, from alleviating floods and storms to allowing multiple human activities in its intertidal spaces. Throughout the centuries, it has been regarded by venetians as their source of life, not only providing food and wealth, but also functioning as a natural defense system and connecting them to the sea. Nonetheless, the lagoon has suffered major damages due to anthropic activities, through severe pollution and contamination and exponential rates of erosion mainly caused by excessive navigation and the dredging of enormous canals to allow large ship traffic. Bringing to light this interconnection between the lagoon and its inhabitants, submerged by the rising water but still very much alive, can spearhead a cultural shift that can bring to a very tangible change, last but not least in a legal sense.

Pietro Consolandi / TBA21: ”Joining efforts with other wetlands and bodies of waters is essential in this struggle, as the feeling of isolation – both at individual and collective level – can bring to a sense of powerlessness and disempowerment.”

TBA21–Academy

In 2011, leading international art and advocacy foundation TBA21 established TBA21–Academy, a cultural ecosystem fostering a deeper relationship to the Ocean through the lens of art to inspire care and action. For a decade, the Academy has been an incubator for collaborative research, artistic production, and new forms of knowledge by combining art and science, resulting in exhibitions, research, and policy interventions. In 2019, two initiatives launched as part of the program to share its research and practice with the wider public: the physical venue Ocean Space in Venice, and the digital platform Ocean Archive. Since 2021, the Academy has been involved as an endorsed project in the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), helping to shape the EU’s Horizon Europe Mission Healthy Oceans and taking an active part in developing the vision for the Bauhaus of the Seas network.

The Confluence of European Waters is supported by two entities within Ca’ Foscari University of Venice: NICHE (THE NEW INSTITUTE Center for Environmental Humanities), led by Professor Francesca Tarocco, and the UNESCO Chair of Water, Heritage and Sustainable Development, led by Professor Pietro Daniel Omodeo.

Pietro Consolandi

Venice Lagune / TBA21

Mekhala Dave

Ocean law and policy analyst / TBA21 Academy

Natural Contract LAB

NCLs research focusses on four bodies of water: Sebkhet Sejoumi (TU) Tejo river (PT), Rhone River (SW) and Senne River (BE)

The multidisciplinary collective was founded in 2021 by artist Maria Lucia Cruz Correia in collaboration with Marine Calmet (rights of nature), Brunilda Pali (restorative justice), Lode Vranken (design/philosophy), vinny jones (sensory scenography) and Evanne Nowak (ecological grief). With the confluence of the Tejo River Margarida Mendes (research/sonic guidance) joined the collective in 2022.

How do we design a process of care based on reciprocity, accountability and interdependency with the river ? Do we need other ways of making justice and gesture of care for rivers?

Natural Contract Lab is a multidisciplinary artistic practice, an ecology of care that aims an active and sustained dialogue with bodies of water under deep ecological transformation. The artistic format is hybrid and unfolds in itself as a response to each river as an exchange and social encounter with a common concern: to make justice to the loss of water ecosystems. Inspired by restorative justice practices, we have designed a protocol of reciprocal care with the aim to weave together new forms of relationship with water, as river guardians. Together we develop a body of care, researching forms of water justice through practices of reciprocal care, such as walking-with, performing rituals, ecocide hearings, restorative justice and ecological grief circles, somatic and audio scores and other actions that move along with the riverine’s flow and its communities. Read more here…

Margarida Mendes

Natural Contract Lab

Maria Lucia Cruz Correia

Natural Contract Lab

SpreeBerlin

In the context of the climate crisis and the accompanying social change, SpreeBerlin explores the relationship between Berlin and the Spree. How can the river be given its own „political“ voice and what can help to create more awareness about the Spree and the influence of humans?

The Spree suffers from sewer overflows, unfavourable river architecture, use of the waters by shipping and traffic, tire wear from cars, fertilizer input from agriculture, sulfate pollution from coal mining, and climate change. The SpreeBerlin Projects raises the awareness of the citizens. On the one hand, more care can be taken in direct action, and on a systemic and urban level, political requests can be made.

The buoy

With the help of a buoy developed in the project, the water body draws attention to pollution. Digital tools and media such as measuring devices and app record the actual state of the river and communicate this to citizens in an accessible way. Exciting historical and current narratives are also communicated. During hot summers, the buoy pumps oxygen into the river to help the Spree and its creatures. The planet-centric approach provides a holistic and „green“ solution to the various problems and ensures a healthier balance between the stakeholders involved.

The process to build SpreeBerlin happens from the desire to promote the dialogue on OpenKnowledge, OpenDesign and OpenTech. The findings, knowledge and designs that emerge in the development processes of the project are always available to the public and inspiring for replication.

SpreeBerlin envisions a future with climate-resilient cities where intact ecosystems ensure a stable and healthy urban climate, and encourages a shift from a human-centric way of thinking and acting to a life / planet centric.

Jakob Kukula

SpreeBerlin

Vistula River (Wisła)

Rivers Sisters is a Poland based collective of women activists and artists formed by artist Cecylia Malik in 2018. She created an idea in which Rivers Sisters would come together to save and support Poland’s largest river, the Vistula. Each member of the collective represents her beloved river and aims to give it a voice.
The first women’s call was created as a happening. It turned out that the topic of rivers and waters was so urgent that in five years time, the art project developed into an art-activist community. The Rivers Sisters defend the wild and unregulated rivers of Poland and Europe. They create social campaigns, happenings, actions, protests, art workshops and exhibitions.

Rivers Sisters

There is a unique river in the heart of Europe, largely still free and wild, with a vibrant ecosystem – the Vistula, a European treasure. More than half of Poland’s area is in the basin of the Vistula, the longest river (1,047 km) in Poland. Despite the construction of dykes and regulatory structures, along a stretch of several hundred kilometers, it has retained the natural character and dynamics of a free-flowing waterbody. The Vistula Valley, characterized by its high biodiversity, has been recognised as a sanctuary for endangered bird species and an ecological corridor of international importance.

Meanwhile, instead of protection, attempts are still being made to develop the river and transform valuable water areas into a cascade of fenced and regulated reservoirs. The Siarzewo barrage dam, contrary to propaganda, will not ensure protection against either floods or droughts. Rivers Sisters is protesting the dam in Siarzewo and encourages thousands of women in Poland to get involved in protecting the river, as well as other rivers.

Cecylia Malik

Vistula River / Rivers Sisters

Anna Chmiel

Vistula River / Rivers Sisters

Mateusz Barski

Vistula River / Rivers Sisters

Mlavska

Mlavska vojska (Mlava army) deals with regional problems concerning the Mlava river in Serbia like SHPPs and pollution, deforestation, mining activities and all other issues and manmade projects that represent threat to the river, the wider environment and all living beings. From 2018 to the present day, the group organised numerous scientific public hearings with lectors from Serbian universities in an attempt to educate and raise awareness of the local population about environmental issues we face.

Mlavska vojska also organised protests and road blocks against SHPP and mining projects, took part in nationwide protests against Rio tinto lithium mine in Jadar valley and is constantly fighting in solidarity with other eco and civil groups against all ecocidal projects and policies that the government is promoting in region of Eastern Serbia. Mlava is not only the life giver to all living creatures from Homolye mts region all the way up to the confluence with Danube, encompassing rich biodiversity with endemic and protected species of flora and fauna, but also a symbol and historical identity marker of local population.

Mlavska vojska: ‘’we strongly feel that we cannot thrive or even exist in our region if something bad is being done to our river, so we also understand and have mutual interest to make close connections with people of the same sentiment and will fight for nature.’’

Zoe Lujic

Mediterranean sea / GARN Europe / Earth Thrive

MORACA AND TARA RIVERS#

As some of the last remaining wild rivers in Europe, Montenegro’s Moraca and Tara rivers stand as monuments of extraordinary natural importance. The Tara River, home to the world’s second-largest canyon, showcases the grandeur of wild landscapes, while the Moraca River, brimming with rich biodiversity, is the next candidate after Vjosa to attain “wild river national park” status.

SENTIENT#

Sentient unites environmentalists, biologists, legal experts, storytellers, artists, filmmakers, and tech innovators with the purpose to inspire a new era of river conservation. Our belief is that cross-disciplinary efforts can transform the preservation of river biodiversity and stop dam projects through sophisticated monitoring technology, legal reforms, and reimagined narratives. Our unique AI river chat lends a voice to nature, fostering an understanding and acknowledgment of its inherent rights.

Working with organizations such as the GARN Network and River Watch, we direct our efforts towards the safeguarding of Montenegro’s wild rivers while broadening our influence throughout the Balkans and the world. With technology, storytelling, and ecological stewardship as our tools, we advocate for the protection of these indispensable waterways.

We invite you to join us in our mission: to inspire consciousness and carve out a sustainable future for these life-giving arteries of the world, and the blue heart of Europe. Together, we have the power to reshape the story of river conservation.

Marijana Lemm

Moraca & Tara Rivers / Sentient

Rights-Based Governance in the Mediterranean Bioregion

A systemic and practical approach to preserving and restoring the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean has for millennia been an exceptionally biodiverse region. Today, countless species, mammals, birds, fishes, amphibians, trees, plants, fungi, and other living beings are facing predicted and already happening extreme climate change impacts and potentially devastating challenges to their existence. This is on top of the challenges they already face from human activities such as agriculture, mining, land encroachment for development, polluting industrial practises and over-fishing, to name but a few.

Rights of the Mediterranean Bioregion Declaration is an Umbrella Declaration for the Med as an overarching document to which all the partners on the ground sign up, follow, respect, promote and work towards. The point of the project is that the Med bio-region is properly and actually protected through behaviour and relationship change, education, rights based governance and restoration.

The intended Declaration of commitments outlines the aims and goals and will involve all parties. The aim is to ultimately have governments, as the ultimate decision makers, sign up. The focus will first be on local communities. They can influence their own governments and other relevant communities to bring them on board.

The aim is to start by relating to existing Rights of Nature initiatives like Mar Menor, Murcia and Red Mud, Marseilles. In time, the initiative will expand to regional partners who will be recognised as ‘kindred spirits’ to get on board. Through research and observation, they can join and help to create a circle and eventually a powerful network.

Zoe Lujic

Mediterranean sea / GARN Europe / Earth Thrive

Loire

The Loire watershed covers a surface area of 117,800 km2, which is 1/5 of mainland France. The Loire, the last natural river in europe – 1,006 km long – is a complex ecological system that naturally links a diversity of territories and their inhabitants, from the mountains where it rises (Mont Gerbier des Joncs) to its estuary (Saint Nazaire – Atlantic ocean). Its droughts and floods, the decline in the number of species migrating up the river, the deterioration of its environments and its water quality are all signs of the ecological and environmental warnings.

parliament of Loire

The Parliament of Loire (ao Maud le Floch) is a fictional institution (or an institutional fiction). This narrative curated by the POLAU-pôle arts & urbanism and developed with the writer Camille de Toledo in 2019-21, aims to give the Loire a voice to defend its interests, to create a shared culture around the Loire river, to return perspective by regarding others than human concerns. It is committed to better understanding these relationships by mobilizing everyone’s imaginations and experimenting the workings of a potential institution.

In 2022, the collective Vers un parlement de Loire was created to open up, amplify and extend this approach to the entire Loire watershed. This collective, made up of Loire Valley actors (University, Mission Unesco, planning agency, Loire school, cultural actors…) puts Loire as a living entity at the heart of its actions, in an approach that integrates arts, sciences and the specificities of the territories. Each member of the collective, through his activity, aims to develop a Loire culture, like representations, research works, art residencies and territorial experimentations.

Maud Le Floch

Loire / Loire Parliament

DRINA#

Pristine ecosystems, wetlands and alluvial forests are among the most important habitats in the Drina basin. They represent an important factor for habitat diversity and provide conditions and shelter for a large number of species, and they also contain habitats that would not exist in the region without these areas. They are a source of fresh water and food, they help control floods, alleviate the filling of aquifers, correct irregular water releases at dams, as well as fight against climate change. However, these precious ecosystems are not sufficiently protected in the three countries on whose territories the Drina basin extends.

Once it was the scene of historically important battles and divided the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, then Austria-Hungary and Serbia, today the Drina is the border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Aleksandra Velimanović

Drina

Akerselva

Oslo: os: the place where the river meets the sea, lo: a place of light.

Akerselva is its river. This river of Os-lo is one of ten rivers that flows to the sea, through the city. Most of them are underground in pipes. Oslo is the city where salt and sweet water meet, where life is born and has come here for eons, due to the water-meeting.

Akerselva is 8 km long starting at 150 mt, at the lake “Maridalsvannet” and makes her way down the curves to the sea, dividing the city in two. The division has been a symbol of class division. The river has been used for fishing, logging, industry and factories and- until a few years ago had extinct all life in the river. Today the wild salmon is again spawning in the river, under November’s dusk. Today we can swim in most parts of the river, compared to twenty years ago, when crime and stench kept people at distance.

Her source, the lake, lies at the forest border. Ten folds of rivers come through the forest, which surrounds the city, and through this lake. Maridalsvannet provides the entire capital city with drinking water. All people here drink from the same water source. We are the same water. The water is the original bloodline that ties all peoples to this place.

The river asks to be recognized as the city´s life-giver and mother, as well as carrier of health and social welfare. The river asks to be recognized within its cycle, thus including the fjord, the rain and the lake with its forest. The river asks for personhood rights. The river asks to make a peace treaty with humans and a mutual dialogue.

The river asks to incorporate the nickname “salmon city” and not “tiger city” – which is an offense – this specific name owes its fame from a poem that describes the capitol as a violent foreign animal, a tiger, which kills the natural fauna (the horse). The new name “salmon city” restores dignity and consciousness of the real life which is thriving

Jessie Jack Ullevålseter

Akerselva

Lake Vättern

Lake Vättern is Europe’s sixth largest lake. Their water is cold and nutrient poor, creating a great underwater visibility. Twenty-eight fish species call Vättern their home. Some of them thrive, some of them are facing hard times due to rising water temperatures linked to climate change. The lake is also home to seven very rare species of small crustaceans who have been in the lake since the Ice Age. They were trapped there when the land rose after the ice sheet melted away. Because of the nutrient poor state of the eco-system, toxic subjects accumulate in the bodies living in the water. For this reason, the dietary recommendations for human children and women of childbearing age are to eat fish from the lake maximum two to three times a year – and crayfish from Vättern contain excessive levels of PFAS, exceeding the new EU limits. Many human beings have a loving and caring relation to Vättern, and swimming and sailing are popular ways to interact with the water. People living close by are also aware of Vättern’s moody temperament and behaviours – hard winds and high waves can come from seemingly nowhere.

Whose Body of Water?

The research project Whose Body of Water? Rights of Nature as Environmental Guardianship for Sweden is centred around lake Vättern and their watershed. Currently circa 300 000 human beings are dependent on the freshwater from the lake. In this interdisciplinary project, we explore how a Rights of Nature perspective can change how water resource management is perceived and practiced. We are interested in understanding how water management transform when natural elements are recognized as living beings and gain rights by themselves. Today, toxins such as PFAS are spread in the lake from extensive aerial exercises, the military is releasing bombs in the lake and threats in the form of mining exploration is always present. This is possible despite regulations to protect the lake as a source for drinking water and a Natura 2000-area.

We acknowledge and build on experiences from previous related engagements with the lake, such as the 2019 Rights of Nature tribunale organized by the Center for Earth Jurisprudence, and the contemporary art venue Österängens konsthall’s Rights of Nature project “Rätten till Vättern”. We are also in dialogue with local environmental guardians and NGO’s such as “ARV – Aktion Rädda Vättern” and “Urbergsgruppen Norra Kärr”.

Thomas Laurien

Viskan and Vättern Sweden

Viskan

Viskan is the name of a 2 200 square kilometre big watershed with a 140-kilometre-long river, many tributaries, and hundreds of lakes. They are situated in the southwestern part of Sweden and have their outlet in the Kattegat/North Sea. Viskan was born when the ice cap withdrew some 13 000 years ago. Many beings, including humans, were early at the site to explore and inhabit the uprising terrain. The last centuries of this relationship have been characterised by people’s desire to control the water for their own benefit. The waterways, wetlands and lakes within the watershed have been straightened, modified, and drained, and numerous industries have greedily taken energy from the fast-flowing water. For a long period, Viskan has been home for the Swedish textile industry. Human inhabitants in the region can still remember how the colour of the river could change daily, from red to yellow to blue and everything in between. This glorious era created some troublesome shadow places, not only far away where the cotton grew in plantations, but also within the body of the river who now holds some of Sweden’s most polluted spots. The water quality today is quite good, but fierce rains are expected in the future – due to climate change – and it is likely that this will release the toxic substances in the bottom sediments. Large scale remediation work is thus being planned. Like most other waterways in Europe the river’s connectivity is poor, making it difficult if not impossible for salmon, trout, and eel to migrate the way they want and need to.

Skimmer och härvor / Shimmer and Entanglements

The “Natureculture Association Shimmer and Entanglements” (2022-) is a continuation of the art led project Shimmer and Entanglements in the River Basin of Viskan (2018-2023), that ended with the exhibition “Ingen Å Är en Ö” (“No River is an Island”). In both the project and the association, we have asked questions about situated relations between humans and more-than-humans. We work process based and transdisciplinary, and we combine artistic methods and approaches with posthumanist, ecofeminist, and nondualist perspectives and ambitions.

In the fall of 2023, initiated by Kennet Öhlund, the association set up a species embassy in the city of Borås – “Arternas ambassad Viskan-Borås”. Through the ambassadors we want to give the river and their inhabitants stronger voices and presence in the local debate and politics. Our long-term goal in the urban context is to initiate and implement removal or modification of existing regulating dams that imprison and stress local fish communities.

Thomas Laurien

Viskan and Vättern Sweden

Reuss

The Reuss is the river that characterises Central Switzerland. It flows northwards from the Gotthard region in the canton of Uri, flows through Lake Lucerne (Vierwaldstädtersee) at the end of which it forms an important element of the cityscape of Lucerne. From Lucerne, it continues through the cantons of Zurich and Aargau before finally flowing into the Aare near Windisch after around 160 kilometers.

For a long time, its wild course in the area of origin was an obstacle to transport over the Gotthard Pass in the alps. The crossing of the Reuss by a spectacular bridge in the gorge of Schöllenen inspired a legend that attributed its construction to a pact with the devil.

The Reuss Delta, the nature reserve where the Reuss flows into Lake Lucerne, is also fascinating. The point where the Reuss leaves Lake Lucerne in Lucerne and flows northwards under the Chapel Bridge is world-famous.

After the Reuss has absorbed the waters of the Kleine Emme, it flows towards Zug, Zurich and Aargau, where it partly forms the border between the cantons. The area near Brugg, where first the Reuss and a little later the Limmat flow into the Aare, is known as the “moated castle of Switzerland”.

Although some efforts have been made to renaturalise the Reuss, many of the river’s natural beauty has been destroyed by human intervention, agriculture and production of energy.

Rechtsperson Reuss Association

The Rechtsperson Reuss Association aims to improve the situation, initially in the canton of Lucerne, by giving the river both legal personality and basic rights. Even if some organisations are trying to put a stop to the destruction of the natural river landscape and reverse “crimes” against the river, the association is convinced that the Reuss needs its own legal personality in order to be able to defend its natural existence in its own name.

Markus Schärli

Reuss

Dit project wordt gerealiseerd dankzij een bijdrage van het Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.