mare/FLUX-Zine
A newspaper exploring actions, connections, and interdependencies between rivers, animals, plants, people, and the built environment
Between retrospectives on past FLUX actions and outlooks on what lies ahead, FLUX-Zine illuminates the river landscapes of Bolzano and elsewhere on 32 pages, interviews scientists as well as residents, creates space for artistic and lyrical contributions and opens unexpected insights into the interweavings of human and river.
Four narratives run through the magazine, outlining different forms of the relationship between people and the river. In this way, real contributions intertwine with fictional ones, political ones with poetic ones, creating a multi-layered picture of rivers and their significance. How does the global scarcity of water affect river landscapes? Can a river become a legal subject? Who has access to rivers and their banks, and how do we want to shape these public spaces in the future?
The magazine was printed on thin newsprint and the design with its narrow columns and tightly set texts is also reminiscent of the space-saving layout of a daily newspaper. At the same time, the images repeatedly break out of the underlying grid and text flows around them. Delicate lines separate the individual contributions from one another and small graphic elements gather like gravel on their banks, overlapping and leading the reader from one page to the next.
FLUX-Zine is not only a publication of the FLUX projects, but above all a river newspaper that is accessible to as many people as possible and can be discovered, read and taken along the riverbanks of Bolzano free of charge.
FLUX-Zine 1
The first issue of FLUX-Zine explores the relationships between humans and rivers, investigating these interwoven connections through a transdisciplinary approach, layered across multiple stories. FLUX-Zine reads rivers by following the traces left behind by living beings and through accumulated knowledge, experiences, and relationships that emerge from and alongside these waterways. Artistic contributions and explorations are interwoven with scientific insights and everyday perspectives, juxtaposing and overlapping to approach the theme of ‘rivers’ in all its complexity, coherence, and gaps, while exploring its continuous yet uneven nature. These reflections highlight fragility, marginalized existences, practices of care, and the unknown and unexpected elements carried by flowing water, revealing new ways of relating to the (human-shaped) landscape.
Contributions from
Bottarin, Federica Castelli + Serena Olcuire, Francesco Comiti, Claudia Corrent, Vittorio Curzel, Elisa Del Prete, Futurefarmers, Waltraud Kofler Engl, Heinz Mader, Flora Mammana, Lorenzo, Mattotti, Lia Mazzari + Caroline Profanter, Annalisa Metta, Anna Michelotti, Astrida Neimanis, Hannes Obermair, Anne Marie Pircher, Amedeo Sartori, Sööt/Zeyringer, Herwig Turk, Susanne Waiz + Ludwig Thalheimer
FLUX-Zine 2
The second issue of FLUX-Zine narrates the story of rivers both near Bolzano and those farther away, creating an echo between wetlands and focusing on surrounding practices of proximity. It connects distant geographies, prompting reflection on our place within a larger organism where rivers serve as vital arteries for both the Earth and our lives. The back cover features a map depicting rivers as the planet’s lymphatic system, highlighting their health through the lens of connectivity—a critical factor for enabling the essential exchange of water, organisms, sediments, nutrients, and energy within riverine environments.
Only a small fraction of the Earth’s water is found in rivers, a precious and diminishing resource, home to delicate ecosystems of plants and forests that face extinction. “Only if water is more than just water, and rivers are more-than-human societies, does it make sense for us to feel like river peoples,” writes Federico Luisetti in these pages.
Contributions from
Fabio De Polo + Lorenz Frei + Peter Hecher + Veronika Reiner, Tobias Schmitt, Luca Weste, Paola Boscaini, Stefano Brighenti, Nicola Toffolini, Chiara Camoni + Elisa Del Prete + Thao Nguyen Phan, Davide Savorani, Emiliano Guaraldo + Andrea Melenje Argote, Kipras Dubauskas, Fabio Carnelli + Michele Lettieri, Siw Umsonst, Antonio Rovaldi, Jonathon Keats, Filippo Capobianco, Andrea Goltara, Johanna Dehio + Mascha Fehse + Johanna Padge, Elisa Cappellari + Matteo Jamunno, Eugenio Tibaldi, Bruno Maiolini, Rosario Talevi, Federico Luisetti, Andreia Garcia
Year
2023 – ongoing
