Tracing Water, Remembering Place: An Immersive Field Workshop on Hydroecology, Memory, and Site-Specific Practice
A week-long immersive workshop mediated by Wenceslaus Mendes will bring together artists, researchers, and practitioners to engage with Delhi’s layered water landscapes through field immersion, material exploration, and collaborative learning. Moving across the Yamuna River, historic baolis, piyaos and the Aravalli ridge, participants will encounter sites where ecology, memory, culture, and infrastructure intersect, revealing the complex relationships between water, land, and urban life.
Drawing on methodologies that engage water as material, archive, and metaphor, the workshop invites participants to explore rivers, wells, reservoirs, and ecological systems not simply as physical environments but as living repositories of history, labour, spirituality, and political change. Through visits to sites along the Yamuna River from Palla to Rajghat, the piyaos and stepwells of Delhi, and the Aravalli landscapes of Manger Village and the Biodiversity Park, participants will engage directly with the material and social realities that continually shape these environments.
Alongside field-based inquiry, studio sessions and collective gatherings at the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (Lajpat Nagar) will create space for reflection, discussion, and experimentation. Working with natural and found materials, multisensorial documentation practices, and archival fragments, participants will be encouraged to develop site-responsive approaches that emerge from observation, listening, and embodied engagement. Facilitators and practitioners working through sound, movement, and sensory practices will extend these encounters beyond the visual, encouraging participants to explore alternative ways of perceiving and responding to place.
Emphasising collaboration, responsiveness, and ecological awareness, the workshop foregrounds process over outcome. It creates a space for participants to share methods, exchange knowledge, and reflect on their own relationship with the environment and place. Through walking, listening, collecting, documenting, and making together, the programme seeks to cultivate a deeper understanding of how artistic practice can engage with the shifting entanglements of water, memory, landscape, and community.
Tracing Water, Remembering Place brings together artists, researchers, conservationists, historians, educators, musicians, and practitioners whose work is deeply rooted in ecology, place, memory, and community. Together, they invite participants to observe closely, listen deeply, and respond thoughtfully to the layered relationships between water, landscape, and urban life.
Important Information
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Workshop Dates: 22–27 August 2026
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Participants: A maximum of 20 participants only will be selected. Only for 18 years and above.
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Attendance: Participation on all workshop and field days is mandatory.
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Workshop Timings: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM each day, with a lunch break from 1:00 PM – 1:45 PM.
(timings will vary on field trip days) -
Venue: Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi and field visits across Delhi NCR.
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Fee: No workshop fee, but participants will have to cover their own travel and food. Tea and lunch will be provided during studio sessions.
Facilitators
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Sohail Hashmi
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Ish S
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Madan Lal Sharma
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Bhim Singh Rawat
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Sunil Harsana
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Sumedha Bhattacharyya
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Swaja Saransh
Field Visits
The workshop includes three field-based excursions:
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Tracing the Yamuna: Palla to Rajghat
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Delhi's Piyaos and Baolis
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The Aravallis: Mangar Bani and the Aravalli Biodiversity Park
Travel
Participants are responsible for their own local travel (including Metro and other public transport) within Delhi NCR. The estimated travel cost for the duration of the workshop should not exceed ₹750.
What to Bring
- Packed lunch and sufficient snacks for field visit days.
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A refillable water bottle. We discourage the use of single-use plastic bottles.
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A notebook and any preferred materials for writing, drawing, documenting, or journalling.
Accessibility
If there is anything we can do to support your participation – whether financial assistance, accessibility support, or any other requirement– please let us know in the Additional Information section. We will do our best to make the workshop as inclusive and accessible as possible.
Kindly check the Site Visit Guidelines and Code of Conduct ,both of which must be read and acknowledged to complete this form.
Please complete this form carefully. Applications will be reviewed based on your responses, and selected participants will be informed via email.
Application deadline 10 Aug 2026.