How the Water Draws Us in—Exploring the Biophilic Connection of Humans and Water with Photography
Human-water relationship is one of the most fundamental relations between humans and nature. To contribute to ongoing discourse on building sustainable relationships with waters, I explore how photography as an artistic practice can bring new perspectives to imagining and conceptualizing human connection to water. As personal human-water relationships are often enacted and constructed through unclear and unseen ways, photography aims to shed light to these potentially personal and hidden instances.
In this study, I examine the biophilic connection between humans and water, through art-based action research: through my own and study participants’ explorative photographic engagement, I aim to answer the research question “How may we imagine and conceptualize the biophilic connection between humans and water?” To answer this question, I conducted art-based action research, where the participants and I explored our relationship with water through photo diaries. The human-water entanglement and its various aspects are illustrated through photographic examples from the data, and further described in short textual vignettes, that assume reflective and personal forms.
