You, Me, the Lakes and the Storm Water Drain

Naomi Zouwer

This exposition charts a creative collaboration between two humans, two lakes and a stormwater drain. By thinking with water as archive and unknowability, making art with the water-bodies of significance to them, and drawing upon the thoughts of key scholars and Indigenous artists, the authors explore questions of ancestry, memory, belonging, and ecological recuperation. Throughout this process, they reflect upon and dialogue about the pedagogical implications of their creative collaboration, undertaken at the intersection of new-materialist arts and common worlds environmental education.

Welcome

Authors: Naomi Zouwer, Affrica Taylor, The Lakes and The Storm Water Drain

Our decision to name the Lakes and The Stormwater Drain as co-authors needs some brief explanation. Although waterways inscribe the surface of the earth, we know that they do not write academic papers. However, as ‘thinking with water’ has been central to our project, we have named these waterbodies as co-authors by way of acknowledging their contributions to our thinking, and thereby to the production of this exposition. This is in-line with the emerging practice of naming Country as co-author in Australian academic publications that acknowledge The Land or Country as the originary creator, and insist upon the indivisibility of Country and Culture.

"I am the vessel, walking around, with the water within me, and then there’s an osmosis within all of the other places that I go to. I always want to know what’s channelling through those places, lifting the cloak of history to reveal what’s beneath and reacting to the here and now" (Watson, cited in Martin-Chew, 2020).

You

The

Lakes

The Storm

Water

Drain

To the questions driving the project...

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