Living with or without water depends on what we choose to remember or forget, and how we use archival knowledge and living memories to adapt. On Thursday, 10 September 2026, Jo Garde-Hansen (University of Leeds) will join us for an rMES Masterclass on “Mediating Water and Memory”. What are water’s memories of human actions and human memories of water, and why are they important to media, communication and culture? How have media, digital networks, online repositories, local archives, museums, activist groups and communities facilitated and prepared (or not) for flood, drought and extreme weather events?
In this masterclass we explore why media and water, the concept of hydro-citizenship, water rights and why remembering water matters, and the role of activist memories in archiving water in the city. In the discussion we will actively engage with our own memories of water and our own hydro-citizenship to better understand how we might use this approach to engage the public in science communication, environmental campaigns and community resilience and adaptation to extreme weather.
Reading
- Garde-Hansen, J. (2021) ‘Introduction: Why Media and Water?’ in Media and Water: Communication, Culture and Perception (London: IB Tauris), 1-19
- Garde-Hansen, J and R. Chidgey (2024) ‘Chapter 5: Activist Memory and the Archive’ in Museums, Archives and Protest Memory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 113-137.
The PDFs can also be accessed via the shared folder here.
Credits
1 ECTS – reading preparation, attendance and active participation in the discussions
The session takes place on Thursday 10 September 2026, 11.00-12.30 in room HG-01A43 (Main Building/Hoofdgebouw) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, . For more information and registration, please contact Linda Kopitz (l.kopitz@vu.nl).
Biography
Jo Garde-Hansen is Professor of Culture, Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on Media and Memory Studies. Her book Media and Memory (2011) was translated into Chinese in 2023. She published Media and Water (2021) and Museums, Archives and Protest Memory (with Red Chidgey, 2024) and is currently working with Linda Kopitz and Carolyn Birdsall on a collection entitled Amphibious Screens: Film and TV between Land and Sea for Edinburgh University Press.