Dialogue
Caroline Courrioux (curator and Head of exhibitions and programme at Villa Medici, Rome); Hsu Fang-Tze (curator); Bint Mbareh (sound artist and musician);
Moderator: Amal Khalaf (Director, Cubitt, and Curator at Large, Serpentine, both London, and Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry co-curator)
This panel brings together curators and artists whose individual research practices invite reflection on the musical and oral traditions of water-related songs that are sung either as acts of summoning and reverence or acts of remembrance and resistance in the face of environmental degradation, dispossession and cultural erasure. Through sea shanties, rain songs, historical testimonies, archival audio and field recordings, this dialogue examines the sonic, poetic and political significance of water songs—embodied pedagogical tools imbued with ecological wisdom—where bodies of water serve as witnesses and vessels of collective knowledge.