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.

Naomi’s Questions

How can thinking about water influence my art practice and artist-led pedagogical approach?

How might working alongside Affrica influence my art practice and artist-led pedagogical approach?

How might the concept of ‘the unknowing(ness) of water’ translate into pedagogy?

If water is an archive of memory - do the lakes in Finland hold my ancestors' memories and is that what I felt when I swam in the lakes? How can I translate this into an artwork?

Questions driving the project

Affrica's Questions

How to love a stormwater drain?

How might hanging around polluted stormwater ponds help me refresh my thinking about memory and belonging?

How might stormwater become my creative collaborator?

How might thinking with water with Naomi bring artistic inspiration to my ecological concerns and Common Worlding Pegagogies?

To the work...

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