Photo by Bojana Janjić Aga

Ever since I got involved with Espaço Agora Now and its European Pavilion project ‘Liquid Becomings’, the word ‘Confluence’ has taken on much deeper, vital significance.

For sure, I liked that word before. ‘Confluence’ connotes soft, more organic ways of coming together, of emerging and merging: without authoritative delineation or monolithic purpose. The confluences of rivers, for instance, are these magical points where water meets water and ‘something joint’ emerges afterwards, that remains dynamic and flows on…

Photo by Naomi Russel

Early July, barely a week after the Belgrade festive launch of Liquid Becomings at which the names of the participating artists and routes on four rivers were announced, I found myself coincidentally in the Serbian capital to meet up with old friends. And happened to be one late afternoon on a boat at the ‘confluence’ of the Sava and Danube rivers – as it later appeared: the very same boat at which the Liquid Becomings formal launch had taken place just six days earlier.

It was one of these slightly scruffy traditional boats which takes visitors around the city a few times a day. Chatting with the young boatsman, whom I had asked as ‘river regular’ whether he had heard about the special launch-event, I saw the same enthusiasm and vital energy that I have noticed for months now when talking with people across Europe about the core spirit of Liquid Becomings.

“Yes, I was there for the launch,” the young skipper told me. “This is such a fantastic project. For rivers connect, rivers are never dull, rivers are our lifeblood, they talk to us, they weave us together, they cross borders, they always find ways to flow on.” He signaled how he had already been working on many rivers across Europe, but “would love to be on the Vistula”, one of the Liquid Becomings rivers, which he had never sailed himself.

Other people on the boat that afternoon started to join in: a woman who was a publisher of historical works on the region, somebody who had come from Hungary but had lived in Serbia for a long time and was interested in urban innovation. So, while we drifted slowly down the water, a range of exchanges emerged: about the concrete constructions, buildings, barges and bridges which we passed along the way, about the old and the new faces of Belgrade, about the timeless and the ephemeral character of Europe’s major cities, opening up some of the – often subliminal – stories which only tend to surface in dialogues between people who find space for some degree of respect and trust.

Photo by Bojana Janjić Aga

Having spent my own youth at the other side of Europe, I have always been fascinated by interpretations in other parts of the continent that would challenge my convictions or throw my prior views on different subjects. This old continent is riddled with such stories. It is a composite, a plurality of stories which continue to inform contemporary perspectives and challenge simplistic views of the world. At the same time, I have also been struck by how – as people from this continent – we do cherish this plurality, but struggle with it as well. The famous ‘unity in diversity’ that the European institutions love to advertise as Europe’s potential force for the good, has also emerged as the antithesis-slogan in the face of endless tales of brutality, turfwars, border disputes, painful crossings, the incessant negotiations, a desperate mantra for something better to come out of all the bloodshed.

Photo by Bojana Janjić Aga

Meanwhile: rivers flow through our unsettled lands and will continue to do so.

Our current times are once again very urgent. They are uncertain, but hence also dynamic. They stir a need for deeper exploration. In Liquid Becomings, we like to explore how the examinations with which the artists crews will engage during their four river journeys can be connected, in organic, fluid ways, with a wide range of civic experiences of so many people across the continent who in smaller and larger collectives are busy with similar challenges in a search of living better, more joyfully and honestly together.

We sense a huge potential for confluence.

We hope water will meet water, ‘something joint’ will emerge from such encounters and flow on….

Text by Godelieve van Heteren, our board member