Breathing Rivers: The River Talks

The discourse series - conceived by Amanda Piña and conceived together with Matthias Mohr - addresses, among other things, the future of Berlin's water supply in the context of climate change and also explores the role of rivers as living bodies/beings that are actively involved in the (re)production of water as life are involved.

The format tests a possible ecology of forms of knowledge in which different systems – Western science, art, local knowledge, practical experience, indigenous knowledge – can enter into a dialogue with one another without the hierarchies that usually exist between them.

"The River Talks" is about a critical examination of the material and symbolic effects of water bodies from a geopolitical and deep ecological perspective. The desire to learn from the rivers should show ways to overcome the modern/colonial break between man and nature. With contributions from anthropologists, glaciologists, climate change researchers, water scientists, indigenous experts and artists, a resonance space is created for collective action and reflection across national borders, to create a planetary awareness of the interdependence of all living promote systems on earth.

Located on the Spree, the Radialsystem was originally one of Berlin's first pumping stations and in the late 19th century it channeled the sewage from the rapidly growing city. As part of the "Breathing Rivers" summer festival, today's radial system will be examined from 20.-23. July 2023 our relationship to life and water with works by the choreographers Amanda Piña, Lina Gómez and Luísa Saraiva.

The "Breathing Rivers" festival opens up spaces of experience in which we can collectively remember a connection between all living things that has been disrupted by the thinking and actions of European modernity. Fractures between man and nature, body and mind, or also separating categorizations such as gender and race - fractures against the background of which violence and exploitation are justified. The return to the inseparable connection of human beings in a larger context begins here with the body as a place of experience. Instead of the idea of universal knowledge, "Breathing Rivers" proposes a multitude of possibilities for knowledge production that arises with and from the reality of differently situated bodies.