LIQUID HISTORIES
SA. 25.7.2026 – Water towers & craftsmen’s yard – 6:00 pm
LIQUID HISTORIES
Panel: Waterways, power & memory
“Liquid Histories” examines waterways as carriers of power, knowledge and memory. Canals, rivers, sea routes and invisible infrastructures become visible as lines along which industrialization, colonialism, migration, extraction and ecological crises have condensed. The focus is on the question of how waterways enabled empires, organized resource flows and secured territorial control, but also generated movements of people, stories, sounds and resistant knowledge.
Luminita Gatejel, a historian at the University of Regensburg, views the Danube as an imperial waterway and as a scene of ecological, social and technical change. For centuries, different interests clashed along Europe’s largest river system: the border policies of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires, but also British demands for free trade and free navigation in the Black Sea. With the European Danube Commission from 1856, the lower Danube region became an early testing ground for international cooperation. Later, dams, river regulation and floodplain restructuring shaped the region and made it clear how closely technical infrastructure, political control and ecological consequences are linked.
Davide Martino, environmental and technical historian and postdoctoral researcher at the Université libre de Bruxelles, combines local and global perspectives. He examines how hydraulic expertise, urban planning and power interacted in early modern cities such as Augsburg, Florence and Amsterdam. In the panel, he leads from Augsburg’s water landscape to the history of the Welser family and the briefly so-called “New Augsburg” in present-day Venezuela: to colonial ambitions, trading capital and waterways in the 16th century. At the same time, he draws an arc from Venice as Augsburg’s trading partner to canals, water power and early forms of industrial production in Europe.
Hajra Haider Karrar, curator and author at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, deals with oceanic histories, colonial knowledge systems and artistic practices. Her contribution focuses on the Indian Ocean as a space of connection and conquest at the same time. Along the Swahili Coast and across the Arabian Sea, she asks how circulation, encounters and trade have shaped contemporary coastal societies. Sound traditions and sound-based archives play a special role: they open up access to mobility, memory and the stories of waterborne entanglements that continue to have an impact today.
In conversation with Jenny Langner, these perspectives link sea and trade routes, imperial rivers and colonial water landscapes with Augsburg’s smaller but exemplary waterways: the UNESCO-protected canals, the historic waterworks, the Lech river and its riparian forests. This creates a multi-layered picture of waterways as social, ecological and economic systems in which past and present intertwine.
The panel discussion will be conducted partly in English. Admission is free. We recommend reserving a seat at info@waterandsound.de
In case of rain, the panel discussion will take place at the Neue Galerie Im Höhmannhaus, Maximiliamstr. 48.
Supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation
GUIDED TOUR – 16:00 – 18:00: Water towers and waterworks at the Red Gate.
The ensemble of three water towers at the Red Gate is probably the oldest known waterworks in Central Europe. Since about 1416 it supplied the city with drinking water. His pumping systems were admired technical devices throughout Europe and existed for over four and a half centuries until 1880. Before the event there is a possibility to participate in a guided tour of the water towers.
Contributors
Luminita Gatejel
Luminita Gatejel is a historian and research associate at the Department of History of Southeast and Eastern Europe at the University of Regensburg. She researches the history of technology, mobility and the environment in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Her habilitation thesis “Engineering the Lower Danube” was published by CEU Press in 2023 and examines the technical and ecological transformation of the Lower Danube in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Davide Martino
Davide Martino is an environmental and technical historian and currently a Wiener-Anspach Postdoctoral Fellow at the Université libre de Bruxelles.
His research combines water and environmental history, the history of science and technology, and the history of architecture and art.
In his current book project “The Art of Governing Water”, he is investigating hydraulic experts in early modern European cities, including Augsburg. He previously conducted research at the University of Bern and received his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 2023.
Hajra Haider Karrar
Hajra Haider Karrar is a curator and writer at SAVVY Contemporary:
The Laboratory of Form-Ideas in Berlin and guest curator of the ninth edition of Colomboscope 2026.
Her curatorial and collaborative projects have been shown internationally, including at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the Lahore Biennale, the Centre Pompidou, the Akademie der Künste Berlin, the Tate Research Centre: Asia and the Manchester Art Gallery. She edits publications and writes regularly on artistic practice and visual and media cultures.
Photo above: Girisha Fernando
Photos below from left to right: Tanja Wagensohn, E. Luigi, Raisa Galofre