Becoming a River
Becoming a River (Traces) is an artistic research into how an urban landscape can acquire a mythology.
We want to explore the hidden presence of the Senne/Zenne and its relationship with the city through sensorial walks, eco-somatic practices, urban rituals and material experimentation.
We are interested not only in researching the history of the river, but in encountering it through imagination and the senses. What happens when we listen for a river that has disappeared underground? Can a buried river still shape bodies, memories and stories? What kinds of contemporary myths might emerge from walking along its invisible course?
During the process, we want to collect traces: images, gestures, sounds, fragments of stories, water, plants, found materials, drawings, words and objects. Through repetition and attention, these traces can gradually become an evolving mythology of the river.
We are at the beginning of our collaboration, but the research has already emerged organically from our individual practices.
We know each other through somatic practice. Within Selin's current Hidden River project, Tatiana was invited to present a film and facilitate an eco-somatic workshop. We have also created a sensorial walk together, which became an important first experiment in bringing our approaches into dialogue.
The project is selected as a part of Outside In 2027 artistic residence and festival by RADAR Mechelen.
Hidden River 2026
What inhabits the space between the self and its environment? Once animated by the imaginal, the daemonic, the mythical and the poetic, this realm now seems increasingly barren. Hidden River takes Brussels’ buried River Zenne as a gateway to explore this liminal field—inviting new stories, rituals and contemporary mythologies to emerge through art, performance and collective imagination, opening possibilities for new forms of dialogue, connection and belonging.
Taking place from 11 to 25 September at Atelier Poiesis, Hidden River brought together a group exhibition with a wider public program of talks, workshops, performances and walks.
Listening to the River
First, we listen, taking walks along the buried course of the river through the city of Brussels. Through sensorial activation techniques, we listen with our whole bodies, attending to changing smells, sounds, humidity and textures; recognising interspecies presences and shifting emotions and thoughts.
Walks/Traces
During the process, we want to collect traces: images, gestures, sounds, fragments of stories, water, plants, found materials, drawings, words and objects. Through repetition and attention, these traces can gradually become an evolving mythology of the river.
Daemons to Devices
we let the sensorial information sink in and merge within us. In this phase, it might be helpful to use art therapy techniques to let the experience manifest itself. Words, visions, sounds and feelings collected start to form a vocabulary of the river’s voice through us.
And how do we respond to the river?
Fluid Dialogues
Narrative emerging.
In this phase, we walk again; this time with our new characters, altered bodies and communication devices. Listening in an expanded way, calling the river and diving into a dialogue; a dialogue between human and non-human. As these acts are repeated, they carry the potential to become urban rituals. Rituals of becoming the river.
Estuary/Delta
Final expo - participative workshop. Through this process, we imagine experimenting with ephemeral altars, biomaterials, photography, video, text, participatory rituals and installation. Rather than illustrating an existing mythology, we want to discover how mythology might emerge through repeated encounters between bodies, materials, people and place.