beyond the lines: geographies of water

THE PROJECT

Beyond the Lines: Geographies of Water is an artistic research project that brings together two territories that appear fundamentally different: the Canton of Valais, an enclosed Alpine region and one of Europe’s major water sources, and Istanbul, a maritime metropolis sustained by vast yet largely invisible hydraulic networks. Despite their contrasting geographies, climates, and cultural histories, both places share a defining condition. They are shaped, connected, and at times divided by water, while relying on complex systems to capture, manage, and distribute it.

Water serves as the project’s central lens. Rather than approaching it as a neutral natural resource, the research considers water as a political, technical, and cultural infrastructure that reveals power relations, engineering decisions, and evolving relationships with the living world. By placing these two contexts in dialogue, the project examines how water shapes contemporary territories while exposing the tensions between control, invisibility, and dependence on this essential element.

The research follows a shared methodological approach: tracing water back to its source. In both territories, the fieldwork moves from the most regulated and abstract forms of water toward its more organic states. In Istanbul, the investigation begins in Taksim, a district historically conceived as a hub for water distribution, before following public fountains, underground networks, aqueducts, and cisterns northwards to the forests around Bahçeköy, where rivers, lakes, and springs emerge. This journey reveals the gradual transformation of water into a standardized, engineered flow, increasingly detached from its natural origins.

The project is based on a transdisciplinary methodology combining field research, the collection of narratives, and sensitive, process based practices. The research will lead to a multilayered mapping approach bringing together scientific, anthropological, sensory, and poetic perspectives. It will include stories and legends related to water, found materials and objects, recordings, drawings, sounds, images, videos, and interviews with local inhabitants, specialists, and knowledge holders. The artists will draw connections between technical infrastructures, everyday uses, and imaginaries linked to water, revealing shared forms of dependency, sacralization, and conflict.

The material gathered during this first phase will serve as the basis for an artwork developed during the second stage of the project in autumn 2026, between Istanbul and Valais.

At a time marked by climate disruption and the increasing scarcity of resources, Beyond the Lines: Geographies of Water proposes a sensitive geography of the world shaped not by fixed borders, but by what circulates, connects, and transforms territories.

THE ARTISTS

Basile Richon (1990, CH/BE) and Rémy Bender (1988, CH/FR) develop a performative and installation-based practice working primarily with sound and site-specific interventions. Through long-term research and attentive observation, the duo investigates territories and the narratives they generate, exploring the ecosystems, infrastructures, and relationships that shape them. Their work brings together historical, environmental, and social dimensions of place, offering new ways of reading landscapes and the often-overlooked dynamics embedded within them.

Richon–Bender have presented their work in exhibitions and residency programmes across Switzerland and internationally, including Bex & Arts Triennale in Bex (Switzerland), the Son Biennale in Sion (Switzerland), the Sonandes Biennial in La Paz (Bolivia), Tsonami Festival in Valparaíso (Chile), Ruido Festival in Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Château Éphémère in Paris (France).