RIVER PORTALS & MOSI-OA-TUNYA

Panels with music and film

In a mixture of keynote, two panels, music and film contributions, the program dives deep into the cultural, ecological and mythological dimensions of rivers. With contributions from Elizabeth Gallón Droste and Ifor Duncan, waterfalls as portals, river choirs, Colombian wetlands and the role of water bodies as witnesses of environmental change will be highlighted. Musicians from the band Mokoomba from Zimbabwe discuss their connection to the Zambezi and the Victoria Falls with presenter Jenny Langner, and highlight their significance in the traditions of the Tonga people with live music contributions.

RIVER PORTALS – Rivers as living archives: soundscapes and transcultural myths

In their joint presentation, Elizabeth Gallón Droste and Ifor Duncan use audiovisual elements to enter into a dialog with rivers, which they see as thresholds between different times. River Portals invites us to perceive rivers in a new way, beyond exploitation such as mining, pollution and hydropower – and to encounter them as diverse, living water systems with their own meanings.
The presentation combines the constantly changing courses of rivers stored in the deep layers of meandering sediments with often forgotten relationships to local waters in Colombia and the UK. In this way, rivers become visible as an expression of planetary interdependencies. They appear in their many forms – from mist to waterfalls – as portals.

In Welsh mythology, waterfalls are seen as the gateway to Annwfn – a mystical dimension, or Otherworld, described as “Here, but deeper”. Here, hidden histories in the river’s catchment are explored, including colonial legacies of the wool industry and current severe pollution.

In Colombia, Mapalina – the breath of the Andean páramo wetlands – stands for the interweaving of air and water. There, the deity moves as mist and wind, transforming into waterfalls and underground rivers that whisper through frailejones (monk’s flowers) and carry the pulse of the earth in a sacred exchange between the visible and the invisible.

As part of their lecture performance, Elizabeth Gallón Droste and Ifor Duncan interweave underwater videos, hydrophone recordings and artistic soundscapes with scientific analyses to evoke the waters of Colombia and Wales from afar. They take the audience on a journey through myths, history and ecological realities and ask the questions: Where does the influence of exploitation end? And how can we learn to perceive rivers as independent, living systems that cannot be completely controlled?

MOSI-OA-TUNYA – Artists’ perspectives on culture and change

In conversation with presenter Jenny Langner, musicians Mathias Muzaza, Abundance Mutori and Trustworth Samende from Mokoomba in Zimbabwe talk about their close connection to the rivers and waterfalls of their homeland, especially the Zambezi and the Victoria Falls (“Mosi-oa-Tunya” – the smoke that thunders), which are of central geographical and cultural importance to the Tonga people. The talk will be enriched by live music.

The Tonga worship the Zambezi as a giver of life, which irrigates their fields and provides them with food in the form of fish. In their traditional beliefs, the river is inhabited by water spirits that can be both protective and dangerous if not respected. Victoria Falls is considered a sacred place where ancestral spirits dwell and important ceremonies take place; one legend tells of a giant serpent that once protected the Zambezi, and the spray from the falls is believed to be sacred smoke that connects the human and spirit worlds. The history of the Tonga is closely linked to the Zambezi, but this harmony was disrupted in the 1950s by the construction of the Kariba Dam, which forced tens of thousands of Tonga to relocate and deprived them of access to sacred sites and traditional fishing grounds – the consequences of this forced relocation still affect the people today and have fundamentally changed their way of life.

Elizabeth Gallón Droste
was born in Bogotá and is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Spatial Cosmology at HafenCity University Hamburg. Her work combines artistic research, audiovisual techniques and anthropology to address river restoration and socio-ecological conflicts. She has been working with communities in Germany and Colombia since 2014, is part of the artistic duo ~pes and published the book Útica, Under the Murmuring Waters in 2024.
Photo: Ali Al-Saadi

Ifor Duncan
is a British postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project EcoViolence at Utrecht University. His research and artistic practice investigate political violence in relation to devastated river systems, dispossessed communities and the instrumentalization of rivers as borders, mega-dams and witnesses of violence. Duncan holds a PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London and was a postdoctoral researcher at NICHE, University of Venice.
Photo: Agata Nguyen Chuong

Mokoomba
is a multi-award-winning Afro-fusion band from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, which combines traditional sounds with modern styles such as funk, soukous, reggae and rock. The band was founded in 2008 and is now one of the most exciting music groups in Africa.
The actress Jenny Langner has been in front of the camera for film and television since 2012 and also works as a speaker and presenter. She has been working at the Staatstheater Augsburg since the 2020/21 season.
Photo: Kundai Taz

The event will be held partly in English. Admission is free. Seat reservations are recommended at info@waterandsound.de

July 27 – Orgazentrum am Eiskanal – 7:30 p.m.

Photo: Ifor Duncan and Elizabeth Gallón Droste

Illustrations: Alex Bon