Friday 11th July 2025
4pm—6.30pm
Sediment heap walk-workshop-picnic-swim with Lili Carr and Gabriele Sturm.
Join Lili Carr, architect and artist-researcher at the River Lab in Vienna, and Gabriele Sturm, artist, activist and plant & wildlife researcher, for an after-work workshop getting to know a unique pioneer-hybrid biotope that is newly emerging on the Donauinsel, that will soon be destroyed. Together we will spend time getting acquainted with the fledgling plant and animal communities establishing there, and use artistic and scientific methods to investigate what kind of biotope is forming. Lili Carr and Gabriele Sturm are collaborating on this endeavor. Afterwards, we will cool off our silty, sweaty bodies with a swim in the Neue Donau. All are welcome!
Meeting point: Donauinsel under the Praterbrücke
In English, with German translation.
Please note we will walk about 15 minutes to the site. The walk is not barrier-free.
We will be out in the late afternoon sun, please bring sun protection and bathing gear!
We will also take the opportunity to picnic together, so please bring anything you would like to eat!
Forming in the post-2024 flood sediment swept up and gathered by the City, this biotope holds the material traces of the Upper Danube. It comprises fine particles of clay and silt — material that binds heavy metals and carbon, holds persistent organic pollutants such as pesticides and herbicides, and transports essential nutrients. This sediment is needed downstream to replenish the Danube’s remaining yet dwindling floodplains. But now, having been desposited on the artifical ‚Haufen‘ of the Donauinsel (the location itself a former floodplain of shifting gravel bars and silts) this material is becoming resolutely terrestrial, home to a wealth of pioneer plant, insect and animal life.
We will observe closely, we will draw, and we will imagine new possibilities for coexistence and care with the material realities of a place that dissolves names and categories, and questions hierarchies. How might this special place help us unfold the complexities and contradictions of 21st century life in an urban floodplain?
Contact: info@hybridwaters.net