Dr. Susmita Mahato 

Water Book invites artists, scientists, and participants of all ages to experiment with collage and poetry comics in an effort to think with, in, under, between, and through water. The central aims of the project are to foster understanding of the importance of marine biodiversity, appreciate connections between ocean biomes and terrestrial counterparts, understand the threats facing marine life due to climate change and associated capitalist policy, and imagine futures of thriving ecosystems. There are three entwined components:

1.\tA series of public conversations and workshops that connect local water issues to marine environments

2. A creative research project focused on the unique ecosystem of whale

fall

3. A collaborative print project that weaves together the first two

Components

The comics medium informs the project at every level: the dynamic and kinetic aspects of the medium make it well-suited to convey trans-corporeal marine realities and relations, while ist approachable form is accessible to a broad range of people who may or may not be familiar with artistic processing. Moreover, integrating collage technique and poetic strategies into the comics medium invites representations of life that are many-headed, many-appendaged, and (simply put) made of many. Water Book emphasizes a necessarily communal, social, systemic approach to understanding the ocean as a space that is in relation—as composed of organisms and processes that are vitally enmeshed.