Conference: Planetary Waters – A Challenge Between Abstraction and Empathy
Conference / Wednesday to Friday,from 22 to 24 October 2025 / German Maritime Museum
The DSM is organizing the conference together with the Ca' Foscari University in Venice and the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
This interdisciplinary event will bring together scholars, researchers, and practitioners to explore public communication strategies that integrate the planetary scale of water studies while maintaining a focus on human-water relationships at the local level. The intertwined crises of climate change and biodiversity loss urge us to incorporate a planetary perspective into our thinking and actions more than ever before. The conference “Planetary Waters” addresses this challenge by examining water in its many forms—oceans, seas, inland waters, and wetlands—through interdisciplinary dialogues that balance abstraction with empathy.
Key questions include: How can the complex effects of climate change on the hydrosphere be made accessible to diverse audiences? Can the humanities and museum exhibitions integrate a planetary perspective while conveying local dimensions in an engaging and empathetic manner? What role can visualization techniques play in this process? The conference brings together scholars, science communicators, curators, and artists drawing on Blue Humanities to explore human-water relationships while advancing three central goals: deepening the planetary dimension in the humanities, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to water studies, and developing innovative public communication strategies. Bremerhaven, with its strong maritime heritage, provides an ideal setting for these discussions. Hosted at the German Maritime Museum/Leibniz Institute of Maritime History (DSM) in the Bremerhaven Havenwelten, the conference seeks to illuminate the vital connections between people and water.
For questions, please contact one of the organizers, Dr. Katrin Kleemann (DSM), Dr. Noemi Quagliati (University Ca' Foscari, Venice), Dr. Fabienne Will (Deutsches Museum, Munich).
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
October 22
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13:30-13:40 | Welcome,Ruth Schilling (Scientific Director DSM, Bremerhaven) |
13:40-14:00 | Introduction, Katrin Kleemann, Noemi Quagliati, Fabienne Will
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14.00-15.30 | Conceptualizing and Narrating Human-Water Relations in Times of Disaster Chair: Anja Binkofski (DSM, Bremerhaven)
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| Anna Barcz (Polish Academy of Sciences), Major Danube Floods in the 19th Century Europe: The Phenomenon of Travelogues
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| Victoria Mummelthei (FU Berlin), Drowned Cities, Sunken Empires: Submerged Memory and Environmental Justice in Dishonored and Bioshock Infinite
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| Silja Klepp (Kiel University), The Politics of Coastal Erosion in Sicily: Concrete Infrastructures and the Economy of Disaster
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| Miles Powell & Dolly Jørgensen (RCC Munich, University of Stavanger), White Bears, Blank Spaces: How Polar Bear Imagery Eroded Regional Specificity in Climate Change Discourses
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15:30-16:00
| Coffee Break
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16.00-17.30 | Planetary Crisis and Underwater Heritage Chair: Brooke Grasberger (DSM, Bremerhaven)
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| Jamie Allen et al. (Critical Media Lab Basel), Sunk Costs
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| Tülin Fidan & Sven Bergmann (DSM Bremerhaven), Learning to See Through the Deep: Visualizing the Legacy of Dumped Munitions
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| Anthea Oestreicher (Zurich University of Arts), Breathing Inverted Spaces: Exchanges in Plankton-Human Relations
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| Judith Riemer (Deutsche Fotothek Dresden), Under Water: Strategies of Eco-critical Visualisation in Artists' Photo Books
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17:30-16:00
| Coffee Break
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18.00-19.00 | Keynote
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| Elda Miramontes (MARUM, University of Bremen), Plastic Pollution from the Coast to the Deep Sea
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19:00 | Public Reception
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October 23
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9.00-11.00 | Workshop |
| Christian Schwägerl (RiffReporter), Lessons from Wetlands Journalism Projects
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| Sonia Levy (Royal College of Art, London), Extractive Epistemologies of the Sea: A Discursive Workshop
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11:00-11:30 | Coffee Break
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11.30-13.00 | Consuming Waters: Global (Hi)Stories Between Extractivism and Activism Chair: Solomon Sebuliba (DSM, Bremerhaven and University of the Balearic Islands)
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| Eike-Christian Heine & Agathe Four-Moret (University of Stavanger, Nantes University), From Sea as Resource to Climate Afterthought: Reframing Environmental History in Stavanger's Petroleum Museum
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| Julia Schade (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), “Don’t extract it, don’t consume it.” Liquid Ecologies and Water Activism in Latin American Visual Performance Arts
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| Stephen Okpadah (University of Warwick), Indigenous Performativity and Hydro-Justice in the Global South
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13:00-14:30
| Lunch
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14.30-16.00 | Linking Abstraction and Empathy: Exploring Waters through Arts and Sciences Chair: Renée Hoogland (DSM, Bremerhaven and University of Southampton)
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| Lesley Pleasant (University of Evansville), Scaling Water Perspectives
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| Katharine Anderson (York University, Toronto), Atlantic Elements
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| Inka Koch & Angharad Dean (University of Tübingen), Into the Wild: Fragile Alpine Water and Biodiversity Through Lenses of Art & Science in a Transdisciplinary University Course
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| Fantina Madricardo et al. (Institute for Marine Sciences Venice), Re-Connecting to the Venice Lagoon Natural and Cultural Heritage Through Science and Art
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16:00-16:30
| Coffee Break
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16:30-17:30
| Museum Tour
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18:30
| Dinner |
October 24
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9:00-10:00
| Keynote
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| Anne Hemkendreis (University of Stavanger), Acoustic Empathy: Experiencing Loss in the Submarine
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10.00-11.30 | Curating Waters — Problems, Potentials, Perspectives Chair: Amandine Colson (DSM, Bremerhaven)
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| Elis Jones (TU Munich), Ocean Health and Ocean Metabolism: Dangers and Opportunities
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| Regine Ehleiter (Witten/Herdecke University), Curating Planetarity: Tidal Poetics, Global Infrastructures
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| Claudia Garradas & Alice Semedo (University of Porto), The Memory of Water: Curating Absence and Empathy in Maritime Museums
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11:30-12:00 | Coffee Break
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12.00-13.30 | Final Discussion and Conclusion |
This conference is generously funded by the German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institute for Maritime History (DSM) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) through an International Scientific Events grant. The event is organized in collaboration with THE NEW INSTITUTE Center for Environmental Humanities (NICHE), the UNESCO Chair on Water Heritage and Sustainable Development at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and the Munich Science Communication Lab at the Deutsches Museum. This conference has been endorsed as an Ocean Decade Activity.