2nd International Symposium: Shape of Water – Art and Ecology Between Fluidity and Form

Organised by Shanshui projects with the collaboration of the College of Fine Arts of Huaqiao University and the Academy for West-Eastern Dialogue of Cultures.

Call for Papers

2nd International Symposium: Shape of Water – Art and Ecology Between Fluidity and Form

Organised by Shanshui projects with the collaboration of the College of Fine Arts of Huaqiao University and the Academy for West-Eastern Dialogue of Cultures, 28 th February 2026 (online).

In the context of an escalating ecological crisis and growing imbalances between technological development and the natural world, water emerges as a vital element through which to reimagine our connection with the Earth. As a symbol, a material, and a life-sustaining force, water has flowed through human cultures since the beginning of time—shaping myths, rituals, philosophies, aesthetic canons, and ecological imaginaries.

This symposium invites scholars, artists, and thinkers to reflect on the manifold meanings of water—across time, geography, and disciplines. Water crosses boundaries: it is fluid, elusive, and often formless, yet shaped by cultural projections, political agendas, and economic interests. It is at once continuity and transformation, origin and disappearance, purity and danger.

Historically, water has played a foundational role in philosophies of nature, in cosmologies and creation myths, and in the shaping of cultural identities. From Daoist flows to Heraclitean rivers, from the Ganges to the Nile, water is both universal and situated—charged with meaning and memory. Philosophical and historical approaches can help unpack the conceptual and material entanglements of water with power, colonialism, gender, and the sacred.

Yet water is increasingly under threat. Multinational corporations extract, divert, and commodify it; industrial agriculture depletes and pollutes it; political regimes weaponize or privatize access to it. Rivers and aquifers are transformed into frontiers of control, often to the detriment of rural and marginalized populations. These asymmetries of access and control reflect broader global inequalities, especially between the Global North and Global South.

How can contemporary art, literature, and philosophy engage with the watery foundations of culture while responding to the urgencies of ecological collapse? Can the shapelessness of water offer new metaphors, methodologies, and forms of resistance?

We welcome contributions from all fields of artistic and humanistic research—including history, literature, visual and performing arts, philosophy, anthropology, and cultural studies—to explore how water, in its various shapes and meanings, can inspire a renewed ecological, ethical, and aesthetic imagination.

Submission of proposals:
Paper proposals (20 minutes presentation), in the form of an abstract (ca. 300 words), in English, accompanied by a short biographical note (150 words max.) are invited to be submitted by e-mail to info@shanshuiprojects.net and privat@thorsten-schirmer.de by the 20th of October. The organizing committee will announce the acceptance of proposals by the 8th of November.

For participation as guest please contact for the online-link: Akademie_fuer_west-oestlichen_Dialog_der Kulturen@gmx.de

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