In this talk, Lisa will present ‘hydrocommoning’ as a concept to think with emergent water cultures by asking what work a theory and praxis of hydrocommoning might do to support transitions to alternative hydrosocial relations beyond modern urban and extractive paradigms. She will lay out a methodological route for interdisciplinary water research that takes seriously situated embodied knowledge and planetary hydrologies by arguing for the generative role of art in igniting multiscalar engagements with liquid ecologies. Drawing on projects developed through the entre—ríos collective, she will situate engaged curatorial practice as a response to calls in the environmental humanities to contribute aesthetic forms that support a reclaiming of common waters.

Lisa Blackmore is a researcher, curator and educator, working with water cultures in Latin America. Since 2018, she has been directing entre—ríos, a research and artistic platform for collaborative methodologies connecting communities to bodies of water. She is a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley and Senior Lecturer in Art History and Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Essex, UK. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume Hydrocommons Cultures: Art, Pedagogy and Care Practices in the Americas (2024) and “Water” in Handbook to Latin American Environmental Aesthetics (2023). entre-rios.net / lisablackmore.net

Co-sponsored by UCSC’s More-Than-Human(ities) Laboratory.

The Center for Cultural Studies hosts a weekly Wednesday colloquium featuring work by faculty and visitors. We gather at 12:00 PM, with presentations beginning at 12:15 PM.

Staff assistance is provided by The Humanities Institute.