Water Guide

BOOK | The Waves, 1931

Virginia Woolf

Fig 1. Cover of the book The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

‘Rippling small, rippling grey, innumerable waves spread beneath us. I touch nothing. I see nothing. We may sink and settle on the waves. The sea will drum in my ears. The white petals will be darkened with sea water. They will float for a moment and then sink. Rolling me over the waves will shoulder me under. Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me.’

Set on the coast of England against the vivid background of the sea, The Waves introduces six characters grappling with the death of a beloved friend, Percival. Instead of describing their outward expressions of grief, Virginia Woolf, who revolutionized literary interiority by abandoning linear plots to capture the unfiltered flow of human consciousness, draws her characters from the inside, revealing them through their thoughts and interior soliloquies. As their understanding of nature’s trials grows, the chorus of narrative voices blends together in miraculous harmony, remarking not only on the inevitable death of individuals but on the eternal connection of everyone.

POETRY | The House on Marshland, 1975

Fig 2. Portrait of Louise Glück

POETRY | The House on Marshland, 1975

Louise Glück

Only the sea moves.
It takes on color, onyx and manganese.
If you are there it will release you
as when, among the tame waves,
I saw your worn face,
your long arms making for shore—

The waves come forward,
we are traveling together.

SOUND | Ice Records, 2022

Susan Schuppli

Fig 3. Cover of Ice Records by Susan Schuppli

Susan Schuppli

As glaciers melt and ice sheets retreat, the Earth’s climate history is vanishing with them. Ancient air bubbles, long held in ice, are being released, while the atmospheric archive preserved in glaciers offers unequivocal evidence of rising greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. In the Himalayas, meanwhile, water scarcity is forcing mountain communities to leave, and with them disappear local practices of care and knowledge around glaciers. This vinyl pressing gathers material from encounters with scientists, ecologists, activists, communities and folksingers. From field recordings made at glacial sites in Canada, Svalbard, Norway and India to a Ladakhi folksong about mountains, rivers and streams, these tracks draw listeners into the sonic worlds of ice.

POETRY | The Poet Compares Human Nature to the Ocean From Which We Came, 2012

Fig 4. Portrait of Mary Oliver

POETRY | The Poet Compares Human Nature to the Ocean From Which We Came, 2012

Mary Oliver

The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,
it can lie down like silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward; it can give

gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,

and so, no doubt, can you, and you.

PHOTOGRAPHY | Water Stories, 2015

Mustafah Abdulaziz

Fig 5. Mustafah Abdulaziz, The Yangtze River. Chongqing, China, 2015

Mustafah Abdulaziz

Berlin-based photographer Mustafah Abdulaziz has spent the past five years tracing the world’s relationship to water. Returning to his Brooklyn roots, his work was recently presented as a luminous series of lightboxes in Brooklyn Bridge Park, beside New York’s East River, as part of the annual photography festival Photoville. A collaboration with Earthwatch, WaterAid, WWF and HSBC’s global water programme, Water Stories forms part of Abdulaziz’s wider long-term project on water, illuminating the human and environmental impact of the planet’s most precious resource.

POETRY | Praise the rain, 2015

Fig 6. Portrait of Joy Harjo

POETRY | Praise the rain, 2015

Joy Harjo

Praise the rain; the seagull dive
The curl of plant, the raven talk—
Praise the hurt, the house slack
The stand of trees, the dignity—
Praise the dark, the moon cradle
The sky fall, the bear sleep—
Praise the mist, the warrior name
The earth eclipse, the fired leap—
Praise the backwards, upward sky
The baby cry, the spirit food—
Praise canoe, the fish rush
The hole for frog, the upside-down—
Praise the day, the cloud cup
The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.
Praise the path on which we’re led.
Praise the roads on earth and water.
Praise the eater and the eaten.
Praise beginnings; praise the end.
Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

LAND ART | Broken Circle/Spiral Hill, 1971

Robert Smithson

Fig 7. Robert Smithson, Broken Circle/Spiral Hill, 1971, Emmen, The Netherlands

Robert Smithson

Drawn to the Netherlands’ geological past and engineered landscapes, Smithson embraced this post-industrial site, creating a 43-metre-wide circular jetty enclosing a canal, alongside a 23-metre-wide spiral mound of sand, soil and topsoil. He conceived the water-bound form as centrifugal and the ascending spiral as centripetal — a duality that echoed the complexity of the surrounding terrain.

A glacial boulder at the centre of the circle became an unintended focal point, which Smithson described as an ‘accidental centre’, charged with unease and ancient memory. Inspired by prehistoric dolmens and the flood of 1953, the work also marked his first reclamation project, transforming scarred land into enduring art.

POETRY | flush, 2015

Fig 8. Cover of the book Undercurrent by Rita Wong

POETRY | flush, 2015

Rita Wong

awaken to the gently unstoppable rush of rain landing on roofs, pavement, trees, porches, cars, balconies, yards, windows, doors, pedestrians, bridges, beaches, mountains, the patter of millions of small drops making contact everywhere, enveloping the city in a sheen of wet life, multiple gifts from the clouds, pooled over centuries and channelled to power us, rain propels our water-based bodies that eat other water-based bodies, mineral vegetable animal. when i turn on the shower, i turn my face and shoulders toward post-chlorinated rain. the tap releases free rain to slake our thirst, transformed through pipes and reservoirs. anonymous agent of all that we, unwitting beneficiaries, do. refusing the inertia of amnesia, i welcome the memory of rain sliding into sink and teacup, throat and bladder, tub and toilet. bountiful abundant carrier of what everyone emits into the clouds, be that exhale or smoke, belch or chemical combustion, flame or fragrance, the rain gives it all back to us in spates, a familiar sound, an increasingly mysterious substance

SOUND | Luminescent Creatures, 2025

Aoba Ichiko

Fig 9. Cover of Luminescent Creatures by Ichiko Aoba

Aoba Ichiko

Inspired by the creatures Aoba Ichiko encountered while diving off a remote island, the Japanese singer-songwriter’s understated album explores liminal worlds through softly textured ambient folk. Luminescent Creatures grows out of her travels to remote islands, her time spent swimming with the tides, and her close attention to the effects of weather and climate change on coral reefs. Here, Aoba takes on the role of observer, listening closely to the world around her rather than inventing one from scratch. Since 2013, she has returned regularly to Hateruma Island, where she formed deep ties with the local community and was eventually taught an ancient song — a gift that speaks to the trust she had earned through attentive presence and immersion.

VIDEO | Vanuatu Women's Water Music, 2014

Fig 10. A still image from The Water Music of Vanuatu, 2014

VIDEO | Vanuatu Women's Water Music, 2014

Tim Cole

The performers of the Vanuatu Women’s Water Music group come from the remote northern islands of Vanuatu. They travel internationally with the Na Mag and Ne Lang dances, a prelude to their mesmerizing water music, dressed in traditional costumes from Gaua and Mere Lava made from flowers and leaves, coconuts and pandanus. Their performances reimagine older traditions through contemporary expressions of matto, bringing together rhythmic water percussion, ukulele-led melodies and soaring vocal harmonies. The water music of Vanuatu is as visually striking as it is sonically unforgettable.