FieldARTS Transitional Waters

In hydrological terms, estuaries are always transitional waters. At the confluence of logistical, ecological, and capital flows, the Ij estuary and the Port of Amsterdam occupy an ecotonal space where freshwaters commingle with saline currents and a transitional energyscape shaped by the alluvial sediments of economic and metabolic circulation. Thinking through and across these shifting estuarine environments, FieldARTS was conceived in response to an emerging epistemic and methodological challenge posed by fieldwork in the environmental humanities: how can researchers and artists learn with and develop methods responsive to the semiotic, material, and historical specificity of “the field” in their thinking, writing, and practice? Combining artistic research, political ecology, field philosophy, and critical hydrology, FieldARTS takes up this question of situated inquiry as an opportunity to undermine and unlearn traditions that delineate or bound the field of study. Working at the intersection of logistical and hydrological fields that frustrate epistemic capture, participants developed immersive methods of reading the lived and lively ecologies of the Ij; turning the studio, the lab, and the field brackish.

FieldARTS was co-founded in 2022 by Fred Carter and Jeff Diamanti at the University of Amsterdam, in partnership with Sonic Acts and supported by NICA, ENLENS, and SGSAH.