WATER BODIES

ISSUE 03

It’s boiled into steam, then turns turbines for the electricity that powers your device, the router it connects to, and every whirring, beating part of the network that brings you these words. This page is brought to you by a million liters of water, as droughts, contamination, and rising sea levels continue to creep us towards a boiling point of human and non-human suffering.

For this third issue of COMPOST, we turn to our relationships with, and acknowledge ourselves as, Water Bodies.

Foreword

mai ishikawa sutton and Tal Milovina

A letter from the editors.

Trek into the Unknown

Chantal Onyango

Mwanyigha's ambitions are as abundant as the water in his environment. The ocean — the body of water his hopes had been cast into — is where his lineage will end once the wooden boat he journeys in docks at the shores of a foreign land.

Every Drop

Olu Niyi-Awosusi

Water goes into every aspect of lives, including our technology. Why is its (mis)use so hidden from us?

flux

Alexandra Kumala

Jakarta had drowned and for two decades she was claimed by the sea — until the government engaged some architects who designed Palm Jumeirah and Jebel Ali as a semi-Atlantis. We flew to Garut where the new airport was built on the reclaimed lands around Mount Papandayan, now near sea level, before taking a private boat to Jakarta.

Water Uninterrupted

E Jayashree Kurup

Citizens and local governments of Gurugram and Bengaluru work together to restore old creeks and ponds to counter urban floods caused by peak precipitation. Citizens are the most interested stakeholders in finding local solutions to counter climate change.

mischief, submerged

shane finan

In the 1930s in Wicklow, Ireland, a valley was evacuated and flooded to create a reservoir and an electricity plant at Poulaphuca. Animals, humans, trees, fungi, birds, and fish were all displaced. So too were myths and histories.

Musselled Out

Dolly, Niall, Eamon Foreman, Elinor

A mysterious agency moves into a Mediterranean reef in an ostensible attempt to conserve its inhabitants. Following a series of disappearances, you are tasked with discovering their true motives and finding out what happened to your subterranean friends.

Throwing a net around the sea

jacob sujin kuppermann

Environmental DNA has been acclaimed as a transformative resource for understanding marine biodiversity — but who gets to draw from this rich well of ecological data?

The Low People and Their Waters

Jens Kimmel

Dutch people are born water heroes...At least, so goes the story. In reality, it took them a thousand years to figure out how to live 'below' the water and, most importantly, how to effectively work together to do so.

Ribeirão da Paciência

Portal sem porteiras

There are many voices to hear. There are many established structures to understand. Walking with the river that supplies our community is how we build thoughts around connections.

relating to the infinite

lake

We seek to communicate the singularity of our experience, and it’s the limits and the peculiarities of a thing that give it character. The more unique, the more novel, a thing is, the more it will catch our eye.

A New Medium for Your Messages

mai ishikawa sutton and mauve

How (and why) did COMPOST become a dweb-native magazine? An update and reflection about our sister project, Distributed.Press

Back cover

Tangents, fragments, and shout outs!