Following the Traces of Water: Exhibition Catalog “On Water. Fluid Perspectives” to Be Published on October 20, 2026

Water connects seas and clouds, glaciers and cities, humans, animals, and plants. It flows through landscapes, bodies, and stories—and lies at the heart of the exhibition On Water. WasserWissen in Berlin. On October 20, 2026, the accompanying exhibition catalog, On Water. Fluid Perspectives, will be published.

A Gimpse Inside the Catalog

The catalog expands on the questions and perspectives explored in the exhibition, which opened at the Humboldt Labor in fall 2025. It draws on the exhibition’s eleven zones, translating its spatial dramaturgy into a distinct publication format. Bringing together research from the Berlin University Alliance, the publication explores what we can learn from water across disciplines: from its cycles, its adaptability, and its ability to create connections. Visual traces of the exhibition intertwine with the voices of Berlin-based researchers. Three essays by the editors and the anthropologist Veronica Strang (University of Oxford) further sharpen our understanding of water as an everyday phenomenon, a conceptual framework for thinking about connections, and an element shaped by cultural and social contexts.

Along the bottom of each page, another way through the catalog unfolds: a Fluid Path that accompanies the individual chapters. It brings together scientific facts, historical observations, and poetic fragments. Like an undercurrent, it runs throughout the catalog, inviting readers to consider water not only as a subject of knowledge but also as a source of ideas, images, and stories.

At the end of the catalog, a page featuring a QR code invites readers to listen to the sounds of water. Water rushes, drips, cracks, gurgles, crashes, and flows. It sounds different depending on whether it is found in rivers, oceans, glaciers, clouds, or objects of technical infrastructure. The audio pieces add a sensory dimension to the catalog, opening up new ways of engaging with water through listening. The catalog is therefore intended not only for visitors to the exhibition but also for anyone interested in water and its diverse scientific, social, and cultural connections.

Development and Design

Like the exhibition itself, the catalog emerged from the interplay of different perspectives. Short scientific contributions, artistic perspectives, object stories, photographs, and essays were brought together for the publication and placed in new relationships with one another.

The graphic design by Dina Fluck also takes up the motif of fluidity, carrying it throughout the catalog. Not only does the Fluid Path, a flowing element along the bottom of each page, respond to the content, but the cover itself also turns water into a design principle: A special printing ink becomes transparent when exposed to moisture, revealing an image beneath it—and thus playing with the theme of the element’s presence and absence.
In this sense, the catalog is not merely a documentation of the exhibition but an independent continuation of its exploration of water.
Available from October 20, 2026, at the Humboldt Forum museum shop, through Diaphanes (link to publisher’s website), and at bookstores.

Bibliographic Information

– Title: On Water. Fluid Perspectives
– Editors: Anna-Lisa Dieter, Daniel Tyradellis
– Graphic Design: Dina Fluck
– Publisher: Diaphanes
– Publication Date: October 20, 2026
– Language: English
– Length: 144 pages
– Price: €20
– ISBN: 978-3-0358-0923-7

Editors

Anna-Lisa Dieter is a curator and literary scholar. She has worked in the museum sector since 2018, including at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden and BIOTOPIA, the new natural history museum in Munich. Since 2024, she has been an exhibition curator at the Humboldt Labor, where she curated the exhibition On Water. WasserWissen in Berlin. In addition to her curatorial work, she develops and moderates literary event series and discussions and writes essays and literary criticism for newspapers such as Die Zeit and the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Her most recent book, Susan Sontag. 100 Seiten (Reclam), served as the basis for two exhibitions on Susan Sontag in 2025, at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn and the Literaturhaus München.

Daniel Tyradellis is a philosopher and curator. He holds the Humboldt Forum Chair for the Theory and Practice of Interdisciplinary Curating, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. His work explores the different media and modes of thought in art, science, and philosophy. Since 1997, he has conceived exhibitions for various museums and institutions, including Fire & Forget at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, Scham at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, and FAKE at Stapferhaus Lenzburg (Switzerland). Since 2021, he has also served as Deputy Director of the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik at the HU Berlin.