For a week in July, Blue Cabin hosted Jen Rae, Centre for Reworlding  and Nicole Vitellone at the University of Liverpool for Water Worlds – a UKRI funded project is part of an international NFRF-I Collaboration ‘Relational Accountability of Mother Earth: Revitalizing and Restoring Land and Water’.

Water Worlds is a First Nations-led project by the Centre for Reworlding beginning with two linked convenings across the Pacific Basin, on the unceded traditional lands and waters of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples in Canda and unceded Taungurung Country in Australia. Each gathering includes a hybrid component, enabling participation across distance and supporting ongoing exchange between locations.

The project grows from Indigenous ways of knowing that understand water not as a resource, but as kin, as teacher, archive and world-builder. It brings together Indigenous artists alongside a wider circle of cultural practitioners, artists and researchers working in relation to these frameworks.  

As twin sites of relational learning, the gatherings strengthen networks, map shared challenges, and possibilities, and generate creative, policy-relevant insights into water futures. This work contributes to ongoing research at the Centre for Reworlding and the University of Liverpool, and connects with wider networks of partners and collaborations held by both the project and its participants. As global climate frameworks approach their 2030 horizon, the question is not only what comes next but what must be remembered, repaired and reworlded.

Project collaborators for the July gathering included: Dr. Jen Rae, Nicole Vitellone, Dr T’uy’t’tanat – Cease Wyss, Dr Syrus Marcus Ware, jazmin whitford, Desirée Patterson, Theodore Walker Robinson, Holly Schmidt, Rita wong, Sunshine Frere, Hania Ilahi, Katrina Orlowski, Jennifer Van de Pol, Tarryn Love, Dr Letila Michell, Guy Ritani, Latai Taumoepeau, Shilo Villflor, and Sage Wright.

Water Worlds – Vancouver is supported by the generosity and care of Other Sights, grunt gallery, Libby Leshgold Gallery, Blue Cabin and Creative Climate.