Ritual Ocean

Water receives, holds, surrounds, swallows, reflects, it is familiar and at the same time illusive and resistant to definitions. It is found in vast quantities but it is never enough. Its collection and distribution is an inalienable factor of survival.

Ritual Ocean explores such relationships through sculptural forms and textual experimentation in the environment of Nisyros, a place inscribed with hydrological patterns, from its water scarcity management systems and public baths to the island’s own crater-like shape resembling a huge reservoir. Drawing on the study of traditional, modern and DIY water management and desalination systems, the project explores the dehydrated plasticity of the landscape, retracing its turbulent relationship with water. The term Ritual Ocean is a hypothetical neologism referring to the idea that a container of water located at sea level is influenced by its currents and shares its properties, like a portable piece of hydrosphere. Between poetry and ceramics – clay infused with collected minerals and natural materials – the work approaches the harvesting of water as a poetic process of meditation.