Imagining Different Aquatic Realities
IDRA’s workshop in Taipei was one of three workshops (along with one held at Wellesley College and another one in Yunnan), sponsored by the European Union within the project HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01” -Project n. 101149574 – IDRA.
Held near the Tamsui river, the workshop brought together experts in water management and alternative knowledge systems, as well as a science fiction writer and artists based in Taiwan, to explore the interrelation of literature, water and policy in the Sinophone world.
Starting from a recognition of the Sinophone’s world significant role in shaping the global future of water management (given both the gravity of the water crisis and the urgency of the policy responses it requires), and by acknowledging the dominant rationalist perspective in water planning (were water-related emotions are often removed from policy reports), the participants have built on water megatrends, local issues and water-related scenarios developed by Wellesley College students, along with their own creative practices and personal relationships with water. Together, they developed new scenarios to envision the future of water in 50 years through literature and art.
Beyond fostering a dialogue between local alternative knowledge systems and rational approaches to water problems, and besides reaffirming the importance of an emotional and personal connection with water (something that literature is uniquely able to convey), the participants also demonstrated the importance of conversations that bring together different sensibilities, perspectives, fields and geographies, not solely from an academic point of view.
Scientific committee:
Nicoletta Pesaro,
Song Mingwei,
Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay,
Daniele Brombal,
Chiara Cigarini
The participants:
Yu Yi-Te is a Research Assistant at National Pingtung University, Taiwan. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Soil and Water Conservation and a master’s degree in social Transforming Studies. He has previously studied ethnic identity politics and Indigenous status systems, focusing on the legal frameworks and socio-political dynamics that shape Indigenous identity. His current research explores the conflicts between state governance and Indigenous land use practices, and the promotion of Indigenous knowledge-centered disaster risk reduction education in Indigenous schools.
Akshay Bhambri is an ICS-HYI Doctoral Fellow and an affiliate of the Science, Technology and Society (STS) Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research spans the politics of knowledge, traditional medicine, and science and society. He has conducted rigorous fieldwork in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, with a special focus on water, rural sanitation, and hygiene. He also led a major report on the State of Water in India, contributing to both scholarly research and policy engagement.
Wu Chi-Yu (b. 1986, Taipei) is an artist based in Taipei. Working primarily with moving images and video installations, Wu’s practice investigates overlooked or disrupted connections among species, environments, and the technologies that shape human civilization. Through layered narratives, he explores Asia’s historical geographies and the interdependencies between humans and nonhumans. Wu Chi-Yu’s works have been exhibited at TKG+, Taipei (2023), Times Museum, Guangzhou (2021), Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (2020), Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai (2018), Taipei Biennial (2016), EXiS, Seoul (2019), and Arkipel, Jakarta (2019). He received a Jury Special Mention at the Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing (2017). He was a resident at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam (2014–2015). Wu is a member of the Taiwanese artist collective Fuxinghen Studio and co-founder of Pailang Museum, a project that explores decolonial approaches to moving images.
Kuang-Yi Ku lives and works both in Taiwan and the Netherlands. He is an assistant professor at the Institute of Applied Arts in NYCU, Taiwan, and is doing his PhD research at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. The research topic is the interdisciplinary practice between art, design, and bioscience. He has graduated with triple master's degrees in social design from Design Academy Eindhoven, dentistry from National Yang-Ming University, and communication design from Shih Chien University. He is a former dentist, bio-artist, and speculative designer. He also co-founded TW BioArt (Taiwan bio art community) to stimulate the fields of BioArt and Science+Art in Taiwan. His works often deal with the human body, sexuality, interspecies interaction, and medical technology, aiming to investigate the relationships among technology, individuals and the environment. Kuang-Yi Ku won Bio Art & Design Award in 2022 and Core77 Speculative Design Award in 2023 for the project “Atlas of Queer Anatomy”. His “Tiger Penis Project” has been awarded Gijs Bakker Award 2018, the annual prize for the best project by a graduating master’s student in Design Academy Eindhoven. He also won the 1st prize in the Taipei Digital Art Awards in 2015 with “The Fellatio Modification Project”, where he involves body modification, gender studies, queer theories, and dentistry all together. His works were featured in international media such as New Scientist, The Huffington Post, Elephant Magazine, DAMN° Magazine, Dezeen, Designboom, VICE, Dazed Digital, Daily Mail, New York Post, and so on.
Hsin-Hui Lin is a science fiction writer and literary researcher based in Taipei, Taiwan. She is a Ph.D. in Taiwanese literature at the National Chengchi University and was a Visiting Graduate Researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (2022-2023). She is the author of the sci-fi novel Contactless Intimacy (2023), with an Italian translation, Intimità senza contatto, published in 2025. Her debut book, Human Glitches (2020), won the 2020 Taiwan Literature Award for Books, one of the local major literary prizes. Her works explore the blurring boundaries between humans and non-humans in the contemporary technological era. She frequently publishes reviews and essays on major media outlets, examining the intersections of literary, visual art, and technology. Her personal website: https://linktr.ee/hsinhuilin
Lee Tzu Tung is a Taiwanese conceptual artist and curator. Growing up amid Taiwan's multifaceted generational identity struggles, they question: "How do marginalized communities 'queer-up' contemporary hegemonies after generational traumas?" Lee employs open-source principles, decentralized tools, and participatory practices, inviting audiences to become co-creators and reflect within their art projects. Lee holds an MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Their work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Taipei Fine Art Museum(TW), MIT Museum (US), Skövde Museum(SE), Asymmetry Foundation (UK), Philosopher's Stone Gallery (KR), Lisbon University (PT), ArtScape (CA), Transmediale (DE), , Hyundai Studio (CN), and , among others.
Chiara Cigarini is a research fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Visiting scholar at Wellesley College. She obtained her Ph.D. in modern and contemporary Chinese literature from Beijing Normal University, with a research project focused on Chinese sf. She is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow carrying out the Global Fellowship project "IDRA - Interrelation of Fiction and Policy in Shaping a Sustainable Future", developed between the Department of Asian and North African Studies of Ca' Foscari University (Italy), Wellesley College (USA), and the University of Oslo (Norway).
