Events
The UNESCO Chair “Water, Heritage and Sustainability” organizes regular events, lectures and webinars.
In collaboration with NICHE, it organizes the Waterscapes series of workshops and talks (contact person: Emiliano Guaraldo).
In 2023, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, it launched the Cross Currents meetings as a forum of cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural studies on hydro-sociology.
In cooperation with the Global Network of Water Museums (WAMU-NET) and Civiltà dell’Acqua International Centre, it organized a series of lectures and webinars from 2021 to 2023. Webinars are addressed to scholars, researchers, professionals in the fields of water studies, as well as the staff of water museums.
2025
- January 14
Ingar Stene - From Ice to Ink: Interpreting Frozen Waters, Life and Climate in Early Modern Greenland - February 4
Conference - Historical perspectives on risk and sustainability - March 11
Simone M. Müller and Elijah Doro - Science and Politics on the Management of Polluting Water Resources - April 1
Jessica Puliero - Ontolagoon: developing a digital ontology of the fishing lexicon in the venetian lagoon - April 2
Stefan Helmreich - NewBooks | Ocean Waves, Ocean Science, Ocean Media
2024
- January 16
Roberta Biasillo - Conflicts without Transformation: History of the Pontine Marshes from Italian Unification to Total Reclamation (1871-1928) - February 22
Stefan Schäfer, Damien Bright, Gretchen Bakke, Marianne Pascale Bartels - Industrial Waters and Local Futures - March 5
Giorgio Andrian - Water Diplomacy and the role of UNESCO - April 16
Jeffrey McCarthy - Re-envisioning the Anthropocene Ocean - May 14
Serafina Cuomo - Water management in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt: a knowledge from below approach - October 1
Rachel Gottesman - Boiling Point: Body Culture at the Fringe of Empire - November 5
Erin Putalik-Amina Chouairi - We All Might Inhabit Margins: Localizing the Planetary Salt-Marsh - December 3
Guillermo Collado Wilkins - Waterscapes of Control: Technocracies from Extractivism to Sustainability - December 16
Isabelle Elizeon - Multiple Perspectives on Venice in the Anthropocene: An Audiovisual Exploration
2023
- April 18
Maddalena Bassani and Fantina Madricardo - Crossing Waters: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to the Venice Lagoon - May 23
Ludovica Galeazzo - Venice’s Aquascape: The Islands of the Venetian Lagoon in a Geo-Spatial Infrastructure - June 20
Nicola Di Cosmo - Floods and Dynastic Change in Seventeenth-Century China: A Case Study - September 19
Pania Mu - Make the Water Flow: Hydraulic Mappings in the 17th-19th Centuries Suzhou
Eli Elinoff - City Impermanent: Watery Speculations in Thailand’s Sinking Capital - October 17
Emiliano Guaraldo - Italian Narratives of Extractivism in the Niger Delta - October 23
Milinda Banerjee and Krešimir Vuković - Wolves of Rome and the Subaltern 2.0: Multispecies Politics in the Anthropocene - November 6
Veronica Strang - The Anthropology of Wonder: Exploring Human Responses to Water and Light - November 28
Dario Padovan - Weaponizing Nature. Water, food and energy in the context of civil and global wars - December 19
Full-day workshop: The Hydro-Sociology of the Grave di Ciano on the Piave River
Cross Currents is a series of conferences in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena.
The first conference was held in Jena, at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, from 5th to 7th July, 2023.
Crosscurrents investigates historical waterscapes from a historical and cross-cultural perspective. Waterscapes transformation, especially through their constant engineering, aims to secure various social uses of water (access to drinkable water, agriculture, health, transportation, energy, defense, recreation), has always rested on complex forms of ecological, social and cosmological knowledge. Land surveying and cosmographic knowledge, including astronomy, have always played an entangled role, although the scientific activity of the agrimensor (or land surveyor) and the astronomer/cosmographer have often been segregated in accordance with epistemological and social divisions of labor.
Medieval and early-modern India is a case in point, as the mathematical practices connected with astronomy and surveying were organized alongside caste and linguistic separations. In early-modern Europe, the practices of water management, hydrology, territory mapping and cosmological inquiry often merged, in line with political and economic drivers of productivity, control and efficiency.
In early-modern Venice, cosmological knowledge constituted an essential basis for territory management and waterscapes architecture, as is witnessed by the scientific activity of the water officers of the Republic of Venice on matters as varied as territory mapping, tidal studies, and eco-hydraulic engineering (canalization, coastal areas interventions, lagoon management, fishing regulations).
European early-modernity also witnessed the rise of new mixed intellectual-practical professionals, in line with the requirements of a process of societal restructuring (marked by technological innovations, capital-oriented forms of investment, novel forms of land and labour valuation, and colonial expansion).
In this context, of an increasingly interconnected modernity, the commonalities and specificities of water-and-territory scientific practices can only be understood through historical and comparative studies.
The case of Mexico City, former Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, shows the parallel and different evolution of an island-city that has been transformed in a very different direction than Venice for different geoengineering and political decisions on the part of the Hispanic colonizers and the post-colonial engineers.
More comparative studies are necessary: the socio-political history of Chinese rivers management ought to be carefully considered, too. This research line in historical geoanthropology aims to strengthen a productive interdisciplinary and crosscultural exchange among scholars on questions of environmental history, water heritage, and sustainable development. The theoretical framework will also be addressed. It addresses crucial questions of historical geo-anthropology, conceived of as an environmental development of historical and political epistemology.
The second series of lectures and webinars organized by the UNESCO Chair in cooperation with THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Envrironmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice took place from 29 September to 6 December 2022. Among the different scholars and practitioners invited for this year, the pioneering water anthropologist Veronica Strang (Durham) gave a keynote lecture on indigenous water beings and multi-species democracy.
In connection with this year's World Water Day theme dedicated to Groundwater - entitled 'Making the Invisible Visible', the side event organized within the UN-Water Summit on Groundwater in Paris and the 4th International conference of water museums complete the educational offering for 2022.
Specific lectures focused on the following topics: ancient knowledge and hydro-technologies; cosmological and legal frameworks; sustainable groundwater management.
This year’s series is organized in cooperation with the UNESCO Chair on ‘Rivers and Heritage’ (University of Tours, France), the UNESCO Chair on ‘Water and Culture’ (University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay) the ERC grant ‘Water Cultures – The Water Cultures of Italy 1500-1900’ at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and the Global Network of Water Museums (WAMU-NET).
The planned lectures were held in English, Spanish, and French.
11th October 2022
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Francesco Vallerani - 11/10/2022
University Ca' Foscari of Venice, UNESCO Chair holder, Italy |
4 MB |
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Javier Taks - 11/10/2022
University of the Republic, UNESCO Chair holder, Uruguay |
3 MB |
18th october 2022
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Inti Calvijo - 18/10/2022
University of the Republic, UNESCO Chair team member, Uruguay |
3 MB |
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Julieta Lopez - 18/10/2022
Uniersity of the Republic, Uruguay |
3 MB |
26th October 2022
Lahcen Kabiri and Oasis Ferkla
Moulay Ismail University and Association for Environment and Heritage, Errachidia, Morocco
Video-presentation 26/10/2022
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Jordi Morato Farreras - 26/10/2022
Polytechnic University of Catalunya, Barcelona, UNESCO Chair coordinator, Spain |
4 MB |
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Thierry Ruf and Mohamed Madane - 26/10/2022
IRD Montpellier, France and University of Agadir, Morocco |
3 MB |
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Toufik Ftaita - 26/10/2022
University of Nice, France |
3 MB |
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Abdullah S. Al-Ghafari and Majid Labbaf - 26/10/2022
University of Nizwa, UNESCO Chair, Oman |
4 MB |
18th November 2022
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Karl Mattihas Wantzen and Yixin Cao - 18/11/2022
University of Tours, UNESCO Chair holder, France and University of Tours, France |
4 MB |
25th November 2022
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Tim Soens - 25/11/2022
University of Antwerp, Belgium |
9 MB |
6th December 2022
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Eriberto Eulisse - 6/12/2022
University of Venice, UNESCO Chair coordinator, Italy |
1 MB |
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Eddy Moors - 6/12/2022
Rector of the IHE, Delft, Netherlands and President of the WAMU-NET |
2 MB |
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Elizabeth Lictevout - 6/12/2022
IGRAC - International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre, Delft, Netherlands |
3 MB |
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Jordi Morato Farreras - 6/12/2022
Universidad Polytecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, UNESCO Chair holder, Spain |
3 MB |
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David Gentilcore - 6/12/2022
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy |
3 MB |
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Sara Ahmed - 6/12/2022
Living Waters Museum, India |
3 MB |
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Farah Hamamouche - 6/12/2022
CIRAD, Algiers, Algeria |
1 MB |
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Monica Cardillo - 6/12/2022
University of Limoges, France |
408 KB |
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Francesco Vallerani - 6/12/2022
University Ca' Foscari of Venice, UNESCO Chair holder, Italy |
1 MB |
The first training course organised by the Chair was held online in form of a webinar series and focused on different tools, strategies and good practices aimed at promoting water heritage outside museums.
The course included 12 webinars and 24 highly qualified speakers from different nationalities. It run on Zoom every Friday from 13.00 to 15.00 CET starting from the 22nd of October and until the 21st of January 2022.
During the course, the following topics were presented and discussed: inland hydrography, riverscapes and urban waterscapes; reading and interpretation of ancestral technologies; heritage mapping and digitization; itinerary design and digital audioguides; methodologies to build participative approaches for enhanced water management; eco-museums and community-led water museums; visual anthropology, collection of oral histories and video interviews; water as sustainable tourism resource; engaging audiences outside museums.
22nd October 2021
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Francesco Vallerani - 22/10/2021
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, UNESCO Chair holder, Italy |
5 MB |
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Eriberto Eulisse - 22/10/2021
UNESCO Chair coordinator, Italy |
5 MB |
29th October 2021
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Jordi Morató Farreras - 29/10/2021
UNESCO Chair “Sustainability”, UPC, Barcelona, Spain |
6 MB |
5th November 2021
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Javier Taks - 5/11/2021
UNESCO chair “Agua y cultura”, Montevideo, Uruguay |
2 MB |
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Sara Ahmed - 5/11/2021
Living Water Museum, India |
5 MB |
12th November 2021
- Please visit the dedicated page WHEN WATERS SPEAK #3- Water Walks.
19th November 2021
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Giulio Castelli - 19/11/2021
University of Florence, Italy |
5 MB |
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Lucrezia Gigante - 19/11/2021
Leicester University, UK |
5 MB |
26th November 2021
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Valentina Bonifacio - 26/11/2021
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy |
5 MB |
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Valentina Bonifacio - 26/11/2021
University of Oxford, UK |
10 MB |
3rd December 2021
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Robin Weinberg - 3/12/2021
Oral History Association |
10 MB |
10th December 2021
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Michael Scoullos - 10/12/2021
HYDRIA, Greece |
4 MB |
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Farah Kabir - 10/12/2021
Action Aid Bangladesh |
3 MB |
17th December 2021
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Edo Bricchetti - 17/12/2021
Ecomuseum of Martesana, Italy |
18 MB |
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Osvaldo Negra - 17/12/2021
MUSE-Science Museum Trento, Italy |
14 MB |
7th January 2022
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Paolo Pileri - 7/01/2022
Politecnico di Milano, Italy |
2 MB |
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Ifor Duncan - 7/01/2022
Ca' Foscari University of Venice |
4 MB |
14th January 2022
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Graham Boxer - 14/01/2022
Canal & River Trust, UK |
3 MB |
21st January 2022
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Hidenobu Jinnai - 21/01/2022
Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan |
9 MB |
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Steven Loiselle - 21/01/2022
University of Siena, Italy / Earthwatch |
3 MB |