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- Newsletter #4: Silthy and Saline
Newsletter #4: Silthy and Saline
Open Studios Tempelhof, WETBEINGS Aukštumala ~ Arts, Science & Story Field Symposium, Reading Group and further fluid findings in May
Dear all, friends, comrades, colleagues, collaborators and art-enthusiasts,
I’m writing to you today from my current residency at the Hamburg harbor, where I’m surrounded by a (transitioning) landscape of containerships, an old transport vessel once used for potassium nitrate (Salpeter), the constant blubbers of engines, and the squeaking of metal and rubber tires. The soundscape here is fluid: watery, industrial, and alive.
Just last week, I was reading Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water by Astrida Neimanis with the Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes Reading Group. The text has stayed with me, echoing through these days as I try to wrap my head around the idea of my body as a vessel for water, and other critters. What does it mean for a body to become interested in land? This brings to mind the mudskipper, that curious creature roaming the shoreline. An in-between being, part land, part water. This also connects to the concept of Hypersea, a term coined by Mark and Dianna McMenamin:
Just as oceanic currents convey the sun’s warmth, schools of fish, and islands of degraded plastic from one planetary sea to another, our watery bodies serve as material media. In an evolutionary sense, living bodies are necessary for the proliferation of what scientists Mark and Dianna McMenamin call Hypersea, which arose when life moved out of marine waters and by necessity folded a watery habitat “back inside of itself.”
These ideas have led me to deeper reflections on the fluid boundaries between land and water, body and environment, and the interplay of mutability and mutualism. Through the lens of queer ecology, this ongoing exploration challenges fixed categories and invites a more porous, interconnected understanding of bodies and habitats as alive and vibrant. Over the past months, this perspective has shaped my artistic practice and continues to inspire new work rooted in these saline, watery surroundings and the life beneath the surface.
It is with great excitement, then, that I invite you to visit my Studio during the Open Studios Tempelhof on May 24 and 25. Here, I will share two recent series that embody this fascination:
Stones from Deepest Seas to Call for Sirens and ROV Hercules Visiting Benthic Shimmers: “I hope they have a friend somewhere, cheering them on as they give such an amazing display of their skill and their beauty.”
Joining me in the studio is Lydia Miligkou with one of their more recent textile works. I’ll be there on Saturday and would love to see you over a chat or drink. You’re warmly welcome to drop by:
 | Open Studios Tempelhof |
From May 31 to June 2, this porous way of working also continues beyond the studio as I’ll be taking part in WETBEINGS AUKŠTUMALA ~ Arts, Science & Story Field Symposium in Lithuania, a three-day gathering that brings together ecologists, artists, researchers, and local communities to engage with the Aukštumala raised bog as a living, breathing peatland archive.
There, I’ll present a lecture performance on Dainėja, in collaboration with Kallia Kefala. Dainėja emerges as a speculative wet-being, a fluid entity shaped by murmurs, swamps, and ancestral sediments. Together, we follow the flows between mythology and memory, extraction and resistance—sounding out the submerged and the shifting through voice, gesture, and story. Our contribution is part of a wider dialogue around peatland ecologies, soft knowledge, and reimagining relations to land that are both queer and deeply entangled.
Graphic by Re-Peat (Catalina Nicoara, Beyza Uysal and Lanhua Weng)
Alongside these artistic explorations of saline bodies, submerged stories, and transitioning political terrains, I’m also continuing a long-dreamed-of practice of collective study:
The Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes is hosting a self-organized, monthly reading group, held online every third Thursday of the month. This is an open invitation to artists, researchers, workers, storytellers, and anyone curious about the frictions, urgencies, and beauty of evolving landscapes.
Together, we’ll read and reflect on landscapes as living, shifting entities—through the lenses of queer ecologies, anti-colonial thought, situated knowledge, and practices of care. Some past texts include Hydrofeminism by Astrida Neimanis, Indefinite Terrains by Polly Stanton, and soon some that move between theory, poetics, and place-based reflection.
You’re welcome to join once, or return often. Participation is fluid—no prior attendance or “expertise” is required. Come as you are, with whatever capacity you have.
If this speaks to you, send a few lines about your interest to desk[at]bureau-of-transitioning-landscapes[dot]net.
Thank you for traveling these fluid spaces with me. Finally, I’d like to share one more line from Astrida Neimanis, a quiet invitation to imagine our bodies as more-than-human places:
To say that my body is marshland, estuary, ecosystem,
that it is riven through with tributaries of companion species,
nestling in my gut, extending through my fingers, pooling at my feet,
is a beautiful way to reimagine my corporeality.
I hope to see you—at the open studio, in the bog, in the reading group, or somewhere between.
With joy, care and currents,
Kim