About the Program:
The Aesthetics of Water course invites participants to explore how to
reconnect with water through perception, imagination, and embodied experience.
Drawing from the discipline of aesthetics, it examines practices, forms of
knowledge, and historical and contemporary experiences that have shaped — or
weakened — our relationship with this vital element. Through an
interdisciplinary approach integrating art, science, and spirituality, the
course proposes thinking about water as a space for knowledge and for creating
new relationships between humans and the aquatic world.
Target Audience:
Professionals and graduates in fields related to the humanities.
Teaching Team:
Natalia Contesse, artist, composer, and aesthetic scholar, holds a
Bachelor’s degree in Aesthetics and a Master’s degree in American Aesthetics
from UC. For more than 25 years, she has developed practice-based research
focused on the popular and traditional cultures of Chile and the Americas, with
emphasis on Water Aesthetics, American epistemologies, ecofeminism, and
situated aesthetics. She directs the Chilean School of Folklore and Crafts and
develops educational programs, research initiatives, and cultural projects with
both community and international reach.
Description:
The Aesthetics of Water course is centered around the
question: How can we reconnect with water through our perception,
imagination, and affectivity? From the field of Aesthetics, it proposes a
reflective and experiential journey aimed at thinking and feeling with
water as a source of knowledge.
Through a historical and theoretical approach, the course
explores the experiences, practices, and epistemologies through which human
beings have built — and also interrupted — meaningful relationships with this
vital element. It also invites participants to recognize and create practices
that foster a co-evolutionary aesthetic between humans and water, articulating
art, science, and spirituality as pathways for exploration and knowledge.
In a context of ecological crisis and shifting relationships
between societies and nature, the course proposes an interdisciplinary
perspective intertwining political, economic, artistic, curatorial, ecological,
spiritual, and scientific dimensions. Through the image of the delta as
both a conceptual and geographical figure, different bodies of water and the
cultures of the hydrocommons they evoke are explored. This contributes
to decolonizing pedagogical frameworks that have treated water as an inert
object and encourages new forms of sensitive engagement with the aquatic world.
The course will be delivered online through live-streamed
classes. Sessions will be complemented by guest lectures from invited
professors addressing the themes explored in the course.
Objective:
To explore the sensitive relationships between human beings
and water from the perspective of Aesthetics, integrating artistic, scientific,
and spiritual approaches in order to understand and reimagine our forms of
knowledge and connection with the aquatic world.
Course 1: Water and Knowledge
- Introduction
to the Discipline of Aesthetics
- Thinking
with Water: Hydrological Logics and the Logic of Water
Course 2: Pedagogies and Aesthetics of Water
- Colonial
Aesthetics
- Immersions
in Water: Tentacular Thinking and Symbiosis
- Hydrofeminisms
Course 3: Water and Politics (Ethos of Water: Refuges
of Sensibility and Emancipation)
- Modern
Waters and the Flows of Capital
- Hydro-Community
Movements and Uprisings
- Water
Wars: Privatization and Commodification
Course 4: Water and Language (Poetic Language:
Dialogical Relations with Water)
- A
Poetics for an Affective and Co-evolutionary Dialogue with Water
- Aesthetics
of Water in Prayer / Ritual / Heritage / Education
- Southern
Epistemologies
- American
Aquatic Poetic Anthology
Course 5: Water and Resonance (Ritual Practices in
Aquatic Cycles and Calendars)
- Water
Festivals in the Andes: Songs and Celebrations of the Hualinas and Talatur
Traditions
- Aesthetics
of Health: Spiritual Experiences of Immersion in Water
- Permeable
Bodies: The Hydrocommons as a Curatorial Aesthetic Practice
Aesthetics
of Water. Deltas for Another Sensitive Life
Format: 4
online sessions – Zoom Platform
Dates: July
14, 21, and 28, and August 4, 2026
Schedule:
Tuesdays, 6:00 PM – 9:30 PM
Fee: CLP
$150,000 / USD 200 (please inquire about payment options)
Information:
estéticasdelagua@gmail.com