The second debate in the WATER/MIGRATIONS series is dedicated to urban problems from the perspective of disappearing cities and forced migration in the context of floods and droughts. We will use specific examples from Poland and Europe to discuss potential ways and tools (including those from the field of art, research and activism) to track, document and monitor the disappearance processes. We will also use these examples to categorise such processes and to ask if in the near future we can become ‘climate refugees in our own country.’
The climate crisis and the hyper modernisation of water policies are making a growing impact on the condition of modern towns and villages, as well as on migration processes. This makes it necessary to redefine refugeeism in legal terms, since the new processes require new definitions. We will talk about these in the context of forced development-induced displacement, which is becoming more and more apparent in the context of the global destabilisation of water resource management.
The meeting is organised with the support of the grassroots group Poznań Garage Sale.***
WATER/MIGRATIONS is a series of interdisciplinary debates organised by Poznań Garage Sale, a grassroots group supporting refugees and people who have experienced migration. This year, the group has been invited to take part in Generator Malta’s project Water Is You. The three interdisciplinary debates will be held online and will focus on demonstrating the specific correlations between WATER understood as a resource, WATER as a political instrument and WATER as an area for activities concerning ecology and the experience of migration. During the debates: Water/Crises/Migrations, Water/Cities/Migrations and Water/Solidarity/Migrations, we will meet with an interdisciplinary group of activists, artists, researchers, architects and, above all, people who have been directly affected by the discussed problems.
Gustavo Carvalho studied with Oleg Maisenberg, at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna, and with Elisso Virsaladze, at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Winner of the 2nd Nelson Freire Music Competition (Rio de Janeiro), he has performed in important concert halls, such as the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Auditorium du Louvre, the Philharmonie am Gasteig of Munich and the Great Hall of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. His interest in comtemporary music led him to collaborations with several contemporary composers, such as Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Harry Crowl, Sérgio Rodrigo and György Kurtág.
Professor Jacek Piskozub, PhD habil, works in the field of physical oceanography at the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), Sopot. As a researcher, he has spent a year at sea, a year in Germany and a year in California. His areas of interest include marine and atmospheric radiation processes, and the interaction between these environments on different scales. For the past fifteen years, he has investigated processes that affect the climate. His most recent focus concerns gas streams that impact on the climate through the sea surface, as well as processes that relate oceanic circulation to the weather and climate on Earth. In addition to research, he is involved in popularising knowledge about the climate. He is a member of the scientific council of the Nauka o Klimacie portal, and recently, Deputy Chairperson of the Interdisciplinary Advisory Panel to the President of PAN. Professor Piskozub has reviewed chapters of IPCC reports and has taken part in selecting satellite Earth observation missions of the European Space Agency, but what has impressed him the most was talking to Greta Thunberg.
Łukasz Łyskawka is one of the organisers of the first Camp for the Climate. For the past decade, he has been involved in issues concerning open-pit mining. A member of grassroots environmental groups, including Camp for the Białowieża Forest and Camp for the Vistula Spit, as well as Zielona Fala and Federacja Anarchistyczna.
Katarzyna Słubik is the chairperson of Stowarzyszenie Interwencji Prawnej (Association of Legal Intervention) and an antidiscrimination coach. She has written on migration and respecting migrants’ rights.
Katarzyna Czarnota - PhD student at the Faculty of Sociology of Adam Mickiewicz University, co-founder of scientific-activist projects and research using critical action-research methodology. In recent years, in cooperation with the Institute of Sociology of Adam Mickiewicz University, the Studio of Art in Social Space of Adam Mickiewicz University and the Studio of Border Questions of Adam Mickiewicz University, she has worked on, among others, didactic projects: "Sociological intervention in the context of contemporary art", "Art as a tool of social criticism. The role of the artist in the process of gentrification" and "Migrations, migrants, crises. What do we know about the refugee crisis?". Her articles have been published, among others, in the Polish edition of "Le Monde diplomatique", "Czas Kultury", "Przekrój". Czarnota deals with the subject of social inequality, housing, new forms of racism, the so-called "refugee crisis", trying to combine theory with practice. She is a member of Poznanska Garazowka and Wielkopolska Tenants' Association.