On Water… from the Puddle
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| free admission, ticket is required |
| Please purchase your ticket in advance online or at the box office in the foyer. |
| max. 50 persons |
| Duration: 90 min |
| 14 years and older |
| German |
| Humboldt Lab, 1st floor |
| Part of: On Water |
What is a puddle, really—and why is it worth paying attention to? Often overlooked, it is in fact an element of the city in its own right: temporary, multifaceted, and full of dynamic processes within the urban water cycle.
The artist Mirja Busch, the anthropologist Ignacio Farías (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), and the urban ecologist Thomas Nehls (Technische Universität Berlin), whose collaboration is featured in the exhibition On Water. WasserWissen in Berlin, will approach the puddle from different perspectives. Together, they explore the kinds of questions a science of these small, ephemeral accumulations of water might raise—and how artistic research can help to develop a “puddleology.”
The conversation will address the forms and classifications of puddles, their role in urban space, and the questions that art and research pose to them: as part of a living environment, as temporary water reservoirs, as disturbances, and as critical zones of the Anthropocene.
Participants
Mirja Busch is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Berlin. In her practice, she brings together ecological, multispecies, feminist, and speculative approaches, engaging with forms of planetary care. Her research focuses on the ontology and perception of puddles as an anthropogenic background phenomenon.
For over 15 years, she has experimented with various artistic forms of archiving puddles –particularly through documentation and water sampling – as well as with methods of making them visible, classifying them, and interacting with them: through artistic texts, puddle observation walks, and a form of speculative forensics concerned with water quality and dried-out puddles.
In 2024, she founded the Institute for Puddleology as an artistic research infrastructure.
Ignacio Farías is Professor of Urban Anthropology, Director of the Georg Simmel Center for Urban Studies, and Co-Director of the Stadtlabor for Multimodal Anthropology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research focuses on current ecological and infrastructural transformations of cities and the associated challenges for the democratization of urban development. In his recent work, he explores the politics of environmental disruptions—from tsunamis and heat to noise. Together with Mirja Busch, he is working on a cultural history of the puddle.
Thomas Nehls is an soil scientist and hydrologist working in the Urban Ecosystem Sciences group at the Institute of Ecology at the Technische Universität Berlin. He researches on building greening and the fluxes of water, energy, and nutrients in cities. His work focuses in particular on urban and constructed soils as a basis for urban greening measures.
Julia Vismann is a moderator and science journalist. She works as an editor, reporter, and presenter for radioeins (rbb) as well as for other ARD radio and television channels. She also hosts various podcasts exploring the intersections of science, politics, and society. She currently moderates “Helmholtz Talks. Science and Politics in Conversation” for Helmholtz Climate and the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) at GFZ. Trained in film studies, she also moderates panel discussions and conferences on topics including decarbonization, artificial intelligence, climate protection, and biodiversity.