Artist
Ameneh Solati

Title
Cosmology of Water

Budget CBK Rotterdam
€ 7.500,00

Year of award
2026

Request type
I&V subsidy

Throughout the centuries, water in Iraq has been deployed as an instrument of domination—diverted, polluted, and used as a weapon. Building on her earlier research into devastated wetlands in Iraq, Ameneh Solati explores with 'Cosmology of Water' how we can reshape water and our relationship with it. Within this new project, she aims to return to a cosmological imagination that views existence as relational and layered, thereby contradicting contemporary views that reduce nature to a lifeless raw material. How can the relationship between humans and nature be re-examined through the lens of Shiite Islamic cosmology, in which water is also seen as a witness, mediator, and living presence? Historical and theoretical research form the basis for this study, followed by visual and auditory experiments leading to a series of audiovisual works.