Converging Waters Conference
Between and Beyond States of Matter
Join us in this conference, where artists and scientists from Japan and Switzerland share insights into their practice around water in a world at risk due to the climate crisis: How can river restorations contribute to flood control, renewable energy production and improve ecosystem services? How does ice melting influence the Arctic’s biodiversity and accelerate global warming? And how can art let us see technology not as a mere solution, but as a tool for reflection, interpretation, and care?
With the artists AKI INOMATA & Marcel Rickli, scientists Dr. Keigo Nakamura, Prof. Dr. Gabriela Schaepman-Strub, Prof. Dr. Michael Döring and the curators Irène Hediger & Flurin Fischer.
Program
2 pm: Welcome and introduction by Irène Hediger & Flurin Fischer (artists-in-labs program), presentations by Dr. Keigo Nakamura, Prof. Dr. Michael Doering and artist Aki Inomata
3:15 pm: Coffee break
3:45 pm: Presentations by Prof. Dr. Gabriela Schaepman-Strub and artist Marcel Rickli, followed by a moderated Q&A
5:pm: End of conference
5:30 pm: Tour through Swiss Pavilion
Registration
Event Details
Amid the accelerating climate crisis, humanity must reconsider its place within the cycles of the Earth. Art can invite us to engage with some of the contradictions of our time: urgency and paralysis, knowledge and inaction, persisting beauty and irreversible loss. And science can help us understanding a highly volatile and complex process and suggest ways to react – to mitigate climate change and to adapt to it.
“Converging Waters” aims to engage and explore how we can address shared concerns about climate change and discuss human climate intervention beyond disciplinary and cultural boundaries and learn from each other how to go forward in a responsible and holistic way. Through various formats we explore how to create new knowledge, while strengthening transdisciplinary and transcultural collaborations and networks between artists and scientists from Japan and Switzerland.
The conference is part of the public program on the exhibition «Converging Waters – Kumo, Kawa, Kōri» at the Swissnex in Japan exhibition space in downtown Osaka, open Monday to Friday from 8 – 26 September 2025. With artworks by Japanese artist AKI INOMATA and Swiss artist Marcel Rickli. Curated and produced by Irène Hediger & Flurin Fischer, artists-in-labs program, Zurich University of the Arts.
We warmly invite you to join our conference and get into a conversation with us.
An extensive break, accompanied by coffee and refreshing beverages allows for one-to-one conversations.
After the conference has ended, you are welcome to join a guided tour of the Swiss Pavilion.
„Converging Waters“ is supported by Swissnex in Japan, Presence Switzerland, Zurich University of the Arts, University of Zurich, Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
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