GMU:Designing Utopias: Theory and Practice/Jemma Woolmore

RITUAL AS SENSOR; RITUAL AS CARE

I feel disconnected to nature. As do, I imagine, many people in the urbanized world, and it is partly this disconnection that drives the ecological emergency threatening bodies of water at a global level. This project is a personal exploration of methodologies to find ways of countering that disconnection and form new relations with the river Ilm in Weimar.

Through a series of rituals, sensing experiments and forms of storytelling I seek to challenge myself towards a more spiritual and reciprocal connection with the river. Acknowledging that colonialism, white privilege, dominant scientific practice and capitalism have shaped my worldview and my relationships with more-than-human worlds I choose to stretch my imagination towards possible futures of co-evolution: to imagine how a close relationship with a body of water might look. What a spiritual connection to water might entail, resemble, or signify. What might the interaction between a river and a human be like if it were mutual?

WORKING PROCESS

RITUALS

REFERENCES / INSPIRATION