The Art of Assembly

Water is a main protagonist of all human mythologies, a metaphor for life itself – and at the same time subject of countless conflicts. The 29th edition of The Art of Assembly asks how water can be considered not as a commodity based on concepts like ownership and exploitation, but rather as a common good or even as a partner: Erena Rangimarie Omaki Ransfield Rhöse, member of the royal family from the Waikato tribe, opens the conversation with her intimate knowledge about the connection of the Maori people with the Whanganui in Aotearoa (New Zealand), the first river worldwide that was granted legal personhood. Indigenous activist, writer and scholar of legal anthropology Edson Krenak Naknanuk shows how the legal imagination of indigenous people offers a different idea of ownership not only for the Amazon. In her play The Water, writer Kathrin Röggla reflects on how a mixture of fear and repression, actionism and bureaucracy, empty political promises and personal interests are preventing targeted action against the climate crisis. The artist and philosopher Elisabeth von Samsonow is fascinated by the bifunctionality that separates water as a symbol of life and its disciplining in technology and industry.

 

 

The Art of Assembly is a nomadic series of talks on the potential and limits of assemblies in art, activism and politics, curated by Florian Malzacher.

 

 

Online Live Stream: https://art-of-assembly.net

 

 

In the frame of the exhibition The Way of the Water