Description
The workshop Water Infrastructures in the Colonial Continuum (19–21 February 2026), led by Adelita Husni-Bey as part of the Sonic Acts Biennial, explored how water infrastructures are entangled with histories of colonialism, power, and contemporary climate crises. Drawing on archival material from Italy’s colonisation of Libya, the workshop examined how infrastructures such as roads, canals, and water systems function not only as technical objects but as instruments that organise access, displacement, and control.Methodologically, the workshop combined archival research with embodied and collective practices, including discussions, film screenings, and exercises inspired by Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Through techniques such as image theatre and body-based exercises, participants engaged infrastructures as lived and political conditions, exploring how power is experienced, negotiated, and reproduced through both material systems and bodily relations.
The workshop positioned infrastructure as an ongoing “colonial continuum,” linking historical cases to present-day contexts—from Dutch water management to contemporary extractive and “green” infrastructures—while proposing collective, performative inquiry as a method to critically analyse and reimagine these systems.
| Period | 19 Feb 2026 → 21 Feb 2026 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Workshop |