Symposium: Water Cycles – COP28 Design Conversations Symposium: Water Cycles – COP28 Design Conversations

This afternoon symposium brings together thinkers from architecture, social practice, and the arts to explore how design-focused and arts-driven practices can shape the understanding and health of water cycles across different geographies. Given the COP28 framing of December 9, 2023, as the Nature, Land Use, and Oceans Day, this event at the Jameel Arts Centre will host speakers from the Netherlands, India, Kuwait, and Bahrein. They will discuss homegrown case studies of regenerative approaches tackling the hydrologic symptoms of the climate crisis, thus seeking the regeneration of water cycles through collective organisation.

The hydrologic cycle is being rapidly altered by climate change on a global scale. West and South Asia are particularly water-stressed, with unsustainable groundwater-based agriculture coupled with increasing groundwater salinity and year-round temperature irregularities. In turn, the Netherlands, as one of the most densely populated coastal lands, is dealing with changing, and unpredictable precipitation patterns. Salinity intrusion endangers Dutch groundwater security, while subsiding peatlands and sea level rise place pressure on decisions regarding urban planning and infrastructure design.

July 2023 has seen the hottest week ever recorded, scarcity and access to clean water provides an urgency of common pursuit and action within sustainable development. We take the urgent issue of restoring the hydrologic cycle to enact a generative and critical space of exchange parallel to COP28.

Treating water as a more than human commons, the presentations and panel discussion are anchored in four key questions:

• How are designers, architects, planners, artists and designers bringing capacities of design research and locally grounded adaptation techniques together to enable water cycle -centric human habitats?
• How can this be done in a way that empowers local communities and civil society who need the most support in regions affected by water-related disasters?
• How can long-term participation of communities and governance partners be ensured thereby influencing socially responsible governance, policies and connected resources?
• What kinds of policies and city-plans enable an approach attuned to restoring the hydrologic cycle? What are the entry points for citizens and public discourse?

• 16:00 – Welcome and introduction by Nora Razian, Art Jameel Deputy Director and Head of Exhibitions, and Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director of the Nieuwe Instituut
• 16:15 – Fluid Pedagogies: Teaching with and for Water | John Hanna and Carola Hein, Delft University of Technology – Netherlands
• 16:35 – Fight with Care: Water, Gender and Resistance | Anjali, Yugma Collective – India, and Ain Contractor, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education – Netherlands
• 16:55 – Mud Flats and Outfalls | Aziz Motawa, director of Akkaz Collective – Kuwait and Bahrain
• 17:15 – Panel discussion and Q&A moderated by Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director of Nieuwe Instituut
• 17:55 – Conclusion & Closing Statement

John Hanna graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at Graz University of Technology in 2014. During his study years, he volunteered and worked with housing and shelter organisations in Zambia, Egypt and Brazil. In the past few years, he worked closely with contemporary art institutions in Graz and in Cairo. Hanna is a final year PhD candidate at the Chair History of Architecture and Urban Planning at Delft University of Technology. His doctoral project addresses the spatiality of urban conflicts, laying a special focus on Paris and Beirut.

Carola Hein is Professor and Head, Chair History of Architecture and Urban Planning at Technical University Delft. She trained in Hamburg (Diplom Ingenieurin) and Brussels (Architecte) and earned her doctorate at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg in 1995. She has published and lectured widely on topics in contemporary and historical architectural and urban planning and has authored several books and articles.

Ain Contractor's research highlights environmental care practices of indigenous fisherwomen living in the Ennore-Pulicat wetlands, located north of the port-city Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Working with a network of solidarity groups in Chennai, fisherwomen host seafood festivals to bring attention to the richness of their wetland's ecology, and their cultural ties to it.

Anjali is an Indian activist who learns from and supports forest, coastal and labour movements through backend legal research, financial and policy activism, filmmaking, journalism, and capacity building. She works in Central and Western India as part of the Yugma Collective, and is researching at the intersection of caste, extractive industries, environmental policy, livelihoods, and language.

Aziz Motawa is a visual artist based between Kuwait and Bahrain working with the mediums of photography, video, installations, and sound. At the core of his practice, he examines the social and ecological implications of urban development and state building on its peripheral ecologies. He is also the director and co-founder of Akkaz Collective.

This Symposium is organised by the Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam) and Art Jameel (Dubai – Jeddah), with support from the Netherlands missions to the UAE in tandem with the network of Global Green Growth Institute (Seoul).