Daughters of the River

As part of the Serpentine Ecologies symposium Queer Earth Liquid Matters, Adham Faramawy premiered Daughters of the River, a performance incorporating dance, sound and spoken word. Drawing on history, mythology and fiction, telling stories of the romances and toxicities of rivers and waterways. They also contributed in the form of a live discussion with Serpentine creative director Hans Ulrich Obrist and artist Seba Calfuqueo.

Queer Earth and Liquid Matters brought together artists, writers, filmmakers, sound and architecture practitioners to explore decolonial and queer ecologies. Highlighting different voices and experiences of the climate emergency, the programme aimed to complicate the binaries of Western knowledge often encountered in environmental discourse. Specifically, Queer Earth and Liquid Matters sheds light on land and water struggles, foregrounds queer/trans Indigenous embodiment in the Global South and around the world. It explored visions and experiences of apocalypse and amplified indigenous refusal and outrage at the consequences of extractive capitalism. The two-day programme featured talks, performances, films, poetry and more. Participants include Xavi Aguirre, Seba Calfuqueo, Adham Faramawy, Ash Fure, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Jacob V Joyce and Rudy Loewe, Jack Halberstam, Victoria Hunt, Bhanu Kapil, Juan Francisco Salazar, P. Staff, Bones Tan Jones, and multidisciplinary dance theatre company Wringing Metamorphosis.

The symposium was curated by Macarena Gómez-Barris, Jack Halberstam and Kostas Stasinopoulos and presented in collaboration with Stone Nest and Queercircle.