Watery Stories
Watery Stories gathers researchers, writers and practitioners to share knowledge and narrations of what it means to live with, at, and alongside coastal edges. The project asks how architecture might learn from ways of living, inhabiting and residing in watery environments - importantly architecture here is understood as a way of imagining and inhabiting the world, as a series world-making practices with varied beings and bodies, sites and oceanic territories.
Watery Stories is an anthology with 8-parts, each departing from a set of overlapping concerns. The stories, readings and tales shared speak to embodied and leaky archives which weave through narrative and infrastructure, text and word. They weave an oral map of coastal conditions from Cape Town to Port Said. The shared audio pieces speak to the cool touch of early morning mist amidst the recurrence of island imaginaries submerged within the blue sea of forgetfulness; stories of learning how to harvest and swim with the presence of the impending danger of rocky shores and unpredictable waves of politics and time; tales of respecting the abundant sustenance the sea offers and remembering to be wary and aware of its many forms of life; echoes of tangible and tactile sites filled with salty memories residing in the hauntings of traumatic familial pasts; and untraceable accounts about places, edge sites and conditions, watery beings and watery bodies.
Watery Stories is presented at the Biennale Architettura 2023, within Dangerous Liaisons at The Laboratory of the Future curated by Lesley Naa Norle Lokko.
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60 CE. Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. (Translation: William Schoff (1912)).
George Hourani. 1963. Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times.
Watery stories¹
¹ Édouard Glissant. 1990. Poetics of Relation.
Dilip Menon, Nishat Zaidi, Simi Malhotra, Saarah Jappie. 2022. Ocean as Method: Thinking with the Maritime.
Abdulrazak Gurnah. 1994. Paradise
Renisa Mawani. 2018. Across Oceans of Law.
² Khadija Abdalla Bajaber. 2021. House of Rust.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the production of history.
Jan Knappert. 1983. Epic Poetry in Swahili and Other African Languages.
Nthabiseng Motsemme. 2004. ‘The Mute Always Speak’.
Yvette Christiansë. 2013. Toni Morrison: An Ethical Poetics.
Gabeba Baderoon. 2009. ‘ The African Oceans - Tracing the Sea as Memory of Slavery in South African Literature and Culture’
³ Engseng Ho. 2006. The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean.
Kalandar Kamalkhan. 2010. The Swahili Architecture of Lamu, Kenya: Oral Tradition and Space.
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor. 2018. ‘In Search of Poem-Maps of the Swahili Seas: Three Sea Poems by Haji Gora Haji.’
Alexis Pauline Gumbs. 2019. ‘Being Ocean as Praxis: Depth Humanisms and Dark Sciences.’
⁴ Khadija Abdalla Bajaber. 2021. House of Rust.
Lisa A. Lowe. 2015. The Intimacies of Four Continents.
Mapule Mohulatsi. 2023. ‘Black Aesthetics and Deep Water: Fish-People, Mermaid Art, and Slave Memory in South Africa.’
Khal Torabully. 2021. Cargo Hold of Stars: Coolitude. (Translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson)
⁵Shenaz Patel. 2005. Le silence des chagos/ Silence of the Chagos.
Katherine McKittrick. 2011. ‘On plantations, prisons, and a black sense of Place.’
Kathryn Yusoff. 2018. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None.
Sylvia Wynter. 1971. ‘Novel and History, Plot and Plantation.
Toni Morrison. 1977. Song of Solomon.
⁶ Riel Debars. 2000. Archipel de Cardamone.
Julius Nyerere. Chombo Cha Taifa Letu.
Meg Arenberg. 2019. ‘Tanzanian Ujamaa and the shifting politics of Swahili poetic form.’
Hager El Hadidi. 2022. Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt
Ottmar Ette. 2017. ‘“Coolies” and corals, or living in transarchipelagic worlds.’
Pamila Gupta. 2020. ‘Of Sky, Water and Skin: Photographs from a Zanzibari Dark room.’
⁷Michel-Rolph Trouillot. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the production of history.
Laleh Khalili. 2020. Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula.
⁸ Amitav Ghosh. 2021. The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a planet in crisis.
Mahmoud Darwish. 1987. Memory for Forgetfulness.
Maryse Conde. 1989. Crossing the Mangrove.
Yvette Christiansë. 1999. Castaway.
Additional references:
Chrystel Oloukoï. 2022. ‘Playing in the Dark: Watery Experiments.
Prita Meier. 2016. Swahili Port Cities: The Architecture of Elsewhere.
Leopold Lambert (ed). 2022. The Ocean… From the Black Atlantic to the Sea of Islands. The Funambulist #39.
‘The mouth is the house of all words’²
‘Everyone must have their share’³
‘Don’t go to sea with a leaky heart’⁴
‘The smell sweet, like sugarcane fields, stretching to the water’s edge’⁵
‘All the islands of the world wear ashes of illusion’⁶
‘In the water’s many tongues, the seams of the softest tissue have run’⁷
‘That which is in the sea, will meet the shore’⁸
Utenzi wa Liongo
Reading by Halima Ali
Descendants of the Ammaqua (2023)
Aaniyah Martin with Joanne Peers, Traci Kwaai and Sarah Martin
House of Rust (2021)
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber
Whose Territory is this? A Fisherman’s Encounter (2023)
Caroline Ngorobi with Suleiman Bakari, Omar Said and Omar Ali
Port Sudan: Rooted in Trust (2022)
Andariya (Nibras Abdel Basit with the reading by Asiimwe Simon Peter)
Zazavavindrano (2009/ 2023)
Dominique Somda
Everything Returns from the Water Whole and Silver (2022)
Asmaa Jama
We hear a reading of ocean poems from Cale d’etoiles (Cargo Hold of Stars) by Khal Torabully - a mauritian poet who coined the term ‘coolitude’, as a means to speak to globalisation from a subaltern position - a site of multiplicity of memories and imaginaries beyond indentured labour and unending exile, forgotten journeys and people. This is a reading by Taariq Abdullatif, a Mauritian architecture student completing his MArch at the University of Cape Town.
We end with a reading from the Utenzi wa Masaibu, an epic Swahili poem recited by Halima Ali, a Zanzibari architect, of the personal and watery geographies navigated on long journeys with ocean-sailing dhows.
The story of Le Morne (2018); Madam Zanna interviewed by Shiraz Bayjoo (2014)
Shiraz Bayjoo
Inganekwane (2023)
Nothando Nolwazi Lunga
Tracing the Red Wind (2021)
Nada Sayed-Ahmed Atieg
Bagamoyo Counterpoints (2021)
Margarida Waco
The Simsimiyya Remembers those history forgets (2011/ 2023)
Alia Mossallam with Mimi Al Ashry, Ibrahim al-Morsi and the Tanboura band of Port Said
Camel meat and Tapes (2020)
Dhaqan Collective
Travessia (2021)
Maria Gabriela Carrilho Aragão
Ocean Home (2021)
Toni Giselle Stuart
In the shared excerpts and conversations, interviews and readings, we hear the hum of passing traffic, waves squabbling with land, hair whipped by the wind, the sound of sighs and tears, and the aroma of salty seaweed or sweet tea at the water’s edge. If even the ‘local’ is merely a site within which multiple versions of the world intersect, as the historian Dilip Menon asks, ‘What would it mean to read along the oceanic fault lines of movement’?
Utenzi wa Liongo is a chronicle of the life and worlds of Fumo Liongo, a Swahili ruler around the 9th-13th century. Halima Ali is a Zanzibari Architect and co-founder of the NGO Baraza Foundation.
Descendants of the Ammaqua (2023) are excerpts of conversations about learning to harvest and swim amidst the waves of politics and pollution in South Africa. The conversations are led by Aaniyah Martin with Sarah Martin- her mother, Traci Kwaai - activist and story-keeper, and Joanne Peers - a hydro-poetic researcher. Aaniyah Martin is an intersectional environmentalist and founder of Beach Co-op, a non-profit organisation dedicated to building communities that care for marine environments.
House of Rust (2021) is a layered and evocative writing of Mombasa, its seas and stories. In this excerpt from chapter 8, we journey with the protagonist, Aisha in a boat that resembles a fishy skeleton and with the company of a speaking cat named Hamza. Khadija Abdalla Bajaber is a Mombasa-born poet and novelist, with a degree in journalism.She is the winner of the Graywolf Press Africa Prize for her first novel,. House of Rust (2021).
Whose Territory is this? A Fisherman’s Encounter (2023) is a conversation between Caroline Ngorobi and three retired fishermen from Mida Creek, Kilifi - Suleiman Bakari, Omar Said and Omar Ali. They share stories of fishing and living along the coast with vibwengo and majini, among other sea beings. Caroline Ngorobi is a theatre-maker based in Mombasa. She is the founding director of Jukwaa Arts Production, and the annual Bahari Huru (Free Ocean) festival project.
We hear an excerpt of field notes from Port Sudan, produced for Rooted in Trust 2.0, and funded by Internews - of chance encounters in the harbour, the aftermath of lockdowns, and drinking tea in the fading light. This is an excerpt filled with hope, and recorded prior to the outbreak of violence on April 15 2023. Andariya is a bilingual digital platform operating between the Sudans, East Africa and the Horn of Africa online at andariya.com.
Dominique Somda shares two stories from fieldwork in Anosy, Madagascar, of the Zazavavindrano, the woman in the water. Dominique Somda is a socio-cultural anthropologist currently based at HUMA - Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town.
Everything Returns from the Water Whole and Silver (2022) explores the waters around east and north Africa, and the stories, narratives, myths and bodies who inhabit these spaces, inspired by the gabarmanyo, a woman of the water. The sound design is a collaboration with Sami el Anany. Asmaa Jama is a Danish-born Somali multi-disciplinary artist, writer and filmmaker who works between languages, ghosts and archives.
‘The story of Le Morne’ (2018) is an audio extract narrated by Shiraz Bayjoo and Kryton Stewart, from ‘What’s Left behind’ a performance with Brook Andrew, Rushdi Anwar and Mayun Kiki at Carriage works, Sydney, Australia which recounts versions of this unbearable tragedy of the maroon town in Mauritius. Madam Zanna was interviewed by Shiraz Bayjoo in Le Morne Village in 2014. Shiraz Bayjoo is a contemporary multi-disciplinary artist who works with film, painting, photography, performance, and installation. His research-based practice focuses on personal and public archives addressing cultural memory and postcolonial nationhood in a manner that challenges dominant cultural narratives.
Inganekwane (2023), commissioned for index of Edges, is an audio inventory of the early morning market at Warwick Junction in central Durban, South Africa - a palimpsest of stories, sounds, people, legal regimes and places- of layered and difficult pasts that converge in this coastal city. Nothando Lunga, is an architect and researcher based in Johannesburg with an interest in the afterlives of colonial built remnants.
Tracing the Red Wind (2021) is an excerpt of a longer essay which speaks to zar as a practice of collective healing and resistance- practices of world-making and sound-making, an archive in and of itself. Nada Sayed-Ahmed Atieg’s work lies at intersections of politics, art and religion, situated within collaborative, collectivized and non hierarchal structures. She is a member of the non-profit WAV.info and program coordinator at Radio LoRa.
Bagamoyo Counterpoints (2021) recounts generations of extractive infrastructures and black resistance of this Tanzanian port city, from a slave-trading port, to a German colonial city and special economic zone, alongside the past and present influence of Julius Nyerere’s philosophy of Ujamaa. This essay was first published at the Archive of Forgetfulness. Margarida Waco, an architectural researcher and writer who originally hails from Angola, having lived between geographies spanning from DR. Congo, the Republic of the Congo, France, and Denmark. This is a reading by Zakiyyah Haffejee, a South African architecture student based at the RCA in London.
We end with a reading of an excerpt of Julius Nyerere’s poem, Chombo Cha Taifa Letu, read by Halima Ali, a Zanzibari architect, where Nyerere speaks to the country as a ship, and its people - a medley of seafarers.
In The Simsimiiyya remembers those history forgets (2011/ 2023) we hear conversations between Alia Mossallam with Mimi Al Ashry and Ibrahim al-Morsi of the Tanboura band of Port Said, alongside the streets, music and workshops of the city. In these sounds and stories, we hear of ordinary histories and wider geographies that coincide at the Suez canal. Alia Mossallam is a cultural historian, pedagogue and writer. Her work and practice are centered on the premise that everyone is a historian, and is always on the search for songs and stories that tell of the popular politics and the essence behind the bigger events such as wars and revolutions, that shape world history.
Camel Meat and Tapes (2020) is a soundscape of a collective workshops held in Bristol with Somali women, which weaves through stories of Somali food, to the role of the camel in nomadic culture, gender roles, songs and stories. Dhaqan Collective is led by Fozia Ismail and Ayan Cilmi. Their practice and seeks to find ways of building imaginative futures that support Somali people in the UK and in East Africa.
‘In the water’s many tongues, the seams of the softest tissue have run’ interspersed throughout we hear recordings shared by Alia Mossallam from street concerts in Port Said. These include ‘Bambutiyya’ (We are the Boatmen of Port Said), ‘Wadina Intassarna’ (And, Here we are, Triumphant), and the last song we hear is ‘Am ya gammal’ (Ode to the camel driver).
Travessia (2021) are field notes from Ibo Island, Mozambique, loosely assembled into a travelogue which speak to architectural history and personal memory, sights, sounds, dreams and fears - moving through ancestral lands. Maria Gabriela Carrilho Aragão was born, lives and works in Maputo, where she founded A OFICINA — Design e Arquitetura E.I, a micro studio that executes projects and “idea-things” since 2018.
Ocean Home (2020) speaks to acts of cleaning, return and repair as part of wider and deeper calendars, cycles of time, and memories of place. Ocean Home was commissioned by Tongue Fu and Liv Torc for the Hot Poets Project, in collaboration with The Beach Co-Op, Cape Town. Toni Giselle Stuart is a South African poet, performer and spoken word educator, who writes poems and stories that aim to heal inherited and ancestral traumas.
‘In these Watery Stories, we hear the contours of what is recalled and preserved in voice and story, amidst waves of violence, politics and pollution. This is ‘memory for forgetfulness’, drawing on Mahmoud Darwish, it is ‘a meditation and a plunge into memories and the soul.’ a search for ‘reciprocal talk’ and for a language of ‘speech and silence’.
Curated and directed by Huda Tayob, a South African architectural historian, and educator, with production and editorial support by Andri Burnett, a South African producer, audio editor and creative, who has produced numerous podcasts including the Open Book, Climate Frontiers, and PEN South Africa’s, The Empty Chair.
(You can also listen to Watery stories via the spotify link above)
Additional Audio credits 1-8:
Kalkbay Beach 2, by Vasti Calitz & Andri Burnett
Seapoint 2, Vasti Calitz & Andri Burnett
Forodhani Gardens, Huda Tayob
BeachWaves Close, Greencouch
Indian Ocean Waves, Tripplexis
Breaking Waves on Beach, Reinsamba
Beachbreak Cobblestones, Eelke
Ocean-6, Pinkhousemusic
The-rain-falls-against-the-parasol, Straget
Great pond snail hydrophone, Klankbeeld
Morning atmos near Marafa Kenya Coast Province, Timtyson
Rock-pool-by-the-ocean, Mings