‘Liquid Heritage: Reimagining Hydro-technologies, Building Inclusive Water Futures’ by Sara Ahmed and Sukrit Sen, in collaboration with Living Waters Museum.

Contemporary water challenges highlight the need for a new paradigm in water management and governance, which requires rethinking what water ‘is’ and what it ‘means’ for all users, especially those on the margins. Water museums exhibit and interpret an outstanding liquid heritage, both tangible and intangible, from ancient artifacts and technologies to strategies for combating water scarcity, pollution, and climate change. While museums are repositories of our fluid past, they also play a vital role in reconnecting people with water in all its dimensions, particularly through a contextual lens embedded in culture, power, and practice. In this talk and presentation, Sara Ahmed and Sukrit Sen will share their journey with the Living Waters Museum.

Living Waters Museum:

Established in 2017, Living Waters Museum is a virtual museum that engages youth in visualizing water heritage and reimagining sustainable, inclusive, and equitable water futures. Through the power of storytelling and technology, we seek to celebrate our water wisdom, inspire youth to view water from an interdisciplinary perspective, and co-build a digital repository as a source of learning for the future. Initially launched at the Centre for Heritage Management, Ahmedabad University, for the first two years, we are currently based at the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune. We are also a member of the Global Network of Water Museums, endorsed by UNESCO’s International Hydrology Program in 2018.