“Liquid Histories” - an interdisciplinary panel within the Water & Sound Festival 2026

“Liquid Histories” is an interdisciplinary panel within the Water & Sound Festival 2026 in Augsburg (24 July – 1 August), which, under the festival motto “Waterways – Canals, Sea Routes, Empire”, explores waterways as carriers of power, knowledge and memory. It focuses on canals, rivers, sea routes and invisible infrastructures along which industrialisation, colonialism, migration, extraction and ecological crises have become densely layered. Drawing on historical, ecological and curatorial perspectives, the discussion examines how water infrastructures enabled empires, organised resource flows and shaped riverine and coastal spaces up to the present – from the Danube and Augsburg’s water landscape to oceanic spaces in the Global South. At the same time, the panel highlights contemporary debates on ecological restoration and justice and asks which alternatives to colonial water regimes are emerging today. Expected outcomes include increased awareness of rivers, floodplains and coasts as ecological borderlands, new spaces of dialogue between research, the arts and the urban public, and impulses for further interdisciplinary collaboration.

https://waterandsound.de/