LIMINALWATER: Liminal Waterway Countercultures

LIMINALWATER: Liminal Waterway Countercultures

 

While most studies focus on Europe’s landmass, LIMINALWATER explores its waterways, especially “liminal” waterways at edges or boundaries where creative alternative forms of life emerge. The project examines countercultures that have developed in response to Europe’s cultural and ecological crises, highlighting how communities adapt and innovate along rivers, coasts, and estuaries.

 

Specific objectives

• Explore historical and contemporary cases of liminal waterway countercultures across Europe.
• Highlight the role of water in shaping post-colonial, post-fascist, and post-socialist urban and natural spaces.
• Document and analyze multilingual sites of cultural production and conviviality.
• Produce digital audio-visual resources, including a blog, a PhotoVoice project and exhibition, a documentary, a video-essay, virtual walks and an interactive map, for academic and public audiences.
• Curate or co-curate local exhibitions in case study areas, working closely with local civil society and arts partners.
• Curate a museum exhibition at the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral (PPMHP) to enhance cultural knowledge resilience.

Expected Achievements

• MucemLab workshops with team and partners
  ·       Project website
  ·       Collective essay
  ·       Photovoice exhibit, Liverpool
  ·       Akademie Graz “Rivers in Crisis” exhibition and conference
  ·       Records for the digital map
  ·       Interactive map
  ·       Guided walks
  ·       Public art in Marseille
  ·       Portuguese documentary film pilot
  ·       Graz video essay
  ·       Video capsules
  ·       Final exhibition at PPMHP/MGR at end of project
  ·       Exhibition catalogue
  ·       Modular digital book
  ·       Collective publication
  ·       Research articles

 

News to be highlighted

The participatory photography workshops for Currents of Change: Lived Histories of Liverpool’s Waterfront concluded with participants selecting and captioning their images for display at the Museum of Liverpool. Through photographs and personal narratives, Liverpool residents with migration and maritime work experiences contributed stories that enrich and sometimes challenge official accounts of the city’s waterfront history.

 

Consortium/ partners

Project Leader: Ben Gidley, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

Co-investigators:

• Sami Everett, University of Southampton, UK
• Raquel Carvalheira, Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia, Portugal
• Yvonne Zivkovic, Karl Franzens University Graz, Austria
• Milka Car, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
• Pierre Sintès, Aix Marseille University, France

Team Members:

• Toni Bandov, University of Zagreb, Croatia
• Marc Bernardot, Aix Marseille University, France
• Giulia Buffoli, Aix Marseille University, France
• Laura Harris, University of Southampton, UK
• Tijana Koprivica, Karl Franzens University Graz, Austria
• Jelena Lalatović, University of Zagreb, Croatia
• Stefanie Populorum, Karl Franzens University Graz, Austria
• Daniella Shaw, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
• Rodrigo Lacerda, CRIA, Portugal, Amaya Sumpsi, CRIA, Portugal, Joana Lucas, CRIA Portugal, Catarina Alves Costa, CRIA, Portugal, Teresa Carvalho Costa, CRIA, Portugal

Associate Partners:

• Valentina Muñoz [Climate Co-ordinator], Sciaena, Portugal
• Aude Fanlo [Head of Research and Education], Mucem, France
• Tamara Mataija [Director], and Tea Perinčić [Curator], Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral, Croatia

Other local partners:

Astrid Kury, Akademie Graz, AT; André Pacheco, Culatra 2030, PT; Samia Chabani, Ancrages, FR; Oksana Chepelyk, independent artist, FR; Sylvain Maestraggi, independent photographer, FR; Elisabeth Leuvrey and Hervé Cohen, Tilem, FR

More information:

Website: https://liminalwater.uni-graz.at/en/  Instagram: @liminal_water Bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/liminalwater.bsky.social

Email: [email protected]