Mountains, Climate, and Community

Limited resources and underdeveloped infrastructure continue to undermine the ability of mountain and remote communities across the world to respond and adapt to climate-related challenges. Nevertheless, academic institutions occupy a strategic position to generate consensus and alliances bridging research, policy, and community action. 

University of Central Asia (UCA) has been at the leading edge of climate and mountain sciences in Central Asia through academic programmes, research, and partnerships. UCA’s International Conference on Mountains, Climate and Health in Central Asia – June 2026 – showcased innovation and commitment at the intersections of human physical and mental health, food systems, water security, and infrastructure. 

Nomad Festival 2026

Water and the Smooth Space of Transmodal Action

Experience gives knowledge substance; knowledge gives experience form; action gives both meaning.

Four Rivers (l-r) Findhorn River, Scotland, Alan Hodgson 2012; Gunt River, Khorog, Tajikistan, "Chorog.JPG", Alexander Flühmann, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0; Naryn River, Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, Michael Garbutt 2022; Cooks River, Hurlstone Park, NSW, Australia Michael Garbutt 2023

September 17–18, 2026

The fifth edition of the Nomad Festival – UNSW Sydney’s and the University of Central Asia’s annual platform for knowledge exchange, debate, and creative practice – partners with the Glasgow School of Art’s Rural Lab in Forres, Scotland. In this shared space of inquiry and action, we explore the theme of water with a focus on rivers.

Water is the smooth space par excellence, at the heart of deepening global crises. Rivers make the issue tangible: connecting and dividing, bringing life—and sometimes death—carrying the histories and futures of the communities that live alongside them. Over two days artist, scientists, and local residents will meet to share knowledge and experience across three continents, and, most importantly, to act together—and to learn how to act together to support the health of the rivers and their human and more-than-human communities.

The symposium envisions collaborative action through “transmodality”, an approach that unites knowledge, experience, and action. On the first day, our transdisciplinary panels present their research and practice. On the second day, each node runs an experiential workshop to explore sensory engagement with their rivers. In the final afternoon/evening session, we’ll develop plans of action to promote our riverine research, teaching, policymaking, and community work.

Day 1

Thursday, 17 September: Session 1: Knowledge

In person at UNSW Art & Design Lecture Theatre EG02 and online

Day 1 - Join Online

Day 2

Friday, 18 September: Experience & Action

Abstracts

The smooth space of transmodal action

Soheil Ashrafi

The talk sets out the transmodal landscape for the symposium. I learn by analysis, taking apart water to unearth its chemical and physical properties — understanding how it is constructed, and why it possesses a complex being that withdraws from a full appearance, closed off from my all too distracted perception. I also hold water, smell it, touch it, learning its texture through my unaided sensibility. Now it is the in-between that matters: I perceive it not in isolation, but as part of a whole of which I am myself a part. Past and future collapse into the present, into "the moment of water" before me. Scientific knowledge remains present, feeding into this perceptual meeting — while my perceptual beckoning, in turn, contextualises that knowledge. Materiality enters the scene, tethering itself to the web of morality with my palpation. In both ways of knowing, I am already acting: adapting bodily, stirring feelings, summoning memory — shaping how I move through the world and the craft I practise, water always somewhere within it. No knowledge without experience, no experience without knowledge, neither without practice: the smooth space of transmodal being, the viscosity of thought — and water — in action.

Central Asia's water towers: ice, snow, rain and the future of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins

Arnaud Caiserman

This presentation offers an overview of ongoing research conducted by the University of Central Asia and its partners on water resources in the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins. Downstream, water in these basins is used intensively by the agricultural sector for highly water-demanding crops such as rice and cotton, and is extensively stored by the energy sector for hydroelectric power production through some of the highest dams in the world. Recent years of alarming temperature increases raise serious concerns about current water-use practices and are fueling new debates on how key economic sectors can adapt to climate change. To understand ongoing trends and shifting paradigms in downstream water use, it is essential to look upstream to the cryosphere - the water towers of Central Asia - composed of ice, snow, and permafrost. Studies of the cryosphere's current dynamics offer valuable insight into future water flow trends, making it possible to anticipate potential future changes and strengthen the resilience of mountain communities. Key indicators include the timing shift of peak snowmelt, the transition from rain to snow, the frequency of mountain hazards, permafrost thaw, or the long-term diminishing role of ice melt in river discharge. This session will showcase recent findings on water-use projections, expedition results, modeling, and mapping, adopting an interdisciplinary, upstream-to-downstream approach.

The social life of a river: environmental histories, social worlds and conflict resolution along the Naryn-Syr Darya

Aibek Samakov

A five-year project led by Dr. Jeanne Feaux de la Croix, Dr. Mohira Suyarkulova, Dr. Adham Ashirov, Dr. Gulzat Baialieva, and Dr. Aibek Samakov brought together anthropologists, political scientists, and historians from across Central Asia to explore the social and environmental histories of the region's longest river system. The Naryn-Syr Darya is also the second-largest feeder of the now divided Aral Sea, and its waters have been a major source of tension between upstream and downstream states due to competing interests in hydropower and irrigation. This presentation examines how the interdisciplinary research group collaborated with Central Asian artists to translate complex research findings into an accessible exhibition.

From urban drains to blue-green corridors and beyond: narrative shifts in valuing urban rivers

Andrew Thomas

Across the world, urban rivers have been transformed by development, pollution, channelisation and altered hydrology. Sydney's Cooks River exemplifies this trajectory. Once a significant cultural and ecological resource for Australia’s first peoples, the river was progressively modified through colonisation, industrialisation and urban expansion, becoming one of Australia's most degraded urban waterways by the late twentieth century. Yet the Cooks River also demonstrates the capacity of urban rivers to recover. Beginning with community-led restoration initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s, and later supported through cross-jurisdictional collaboration, the river has become a focal point for ecological restoration, community stewardship and blue-green corridor planning. Using the Cooks River as a case study, this presentation examines the factors that contributed to both degradation and recovery, highlighting lessons for urban river governance, community participation and long-term resilience in highly urbanised catchments.

From streets to rivers: tackling stormwater pollution with nature-based solutions

Kefeng Zhang

Urban stormwater is a major pathway by which sediments, nutrients, metals, litter, microplastics and emerging contaminants reach waterways such as the Cooks River. Yet much of this pollution is generated diffusely across the catchment, making end-of-pipe treatment alone insufficient. This talk will explore how distributed nature-based solutions—including raingardens, bioretention systems and other forms of green infrastructure—can intercept, retain and treat stormwater closer to where it falls. Drawing on research and implementation examples from Sydney, I will discuss what these systems can achieve, where their limitations lie, and how monitoring, smarter operation and better integration with urban planning can improve their performance.

Seeing hidden water: locating the lost wetlands of the Cooks River

Holly O’Neil

Sydney's Cook's River used to be framed by an intricate system of flourishing wetlands. Now, these crucial ecosystems flow through stormwater infrastructure – silenced and invisible. This research explores how creative methods might help to locate and surface these waters stories, to encourage community connection and highlight their importance.

One river, two tales: the story of Qiqi, the last Baiji dolphin

Xinyue Liu

In this presentation, I tell the story of Qiqi, the 'last' Baiji dolphin, who lived in captivity for twenty-two years before his death. The species was subsequently declared functionally extinct. Tracing the history of the Yangtze River, I examine the conflict between development and the conservation of 'ghost species': animals still occasionally sighted but unlikely to survive. I follow efforts to conserve China's two endemic river cetaceans from the 1980s to the present, and show how field observation becomes speculative art, and how dance can turn grief into action. In doing so, I introduce my key concept of conditional apparition, the idea that staging reality, both materially and rhetorically, can allow vanishing and vanished species to persist in cultural memory.

Counter-currents: water in Indigenous literatures of the Americas

Charles Piggott

This paper will present the findings of the “Counter-Currents” project, which compares the role of water in 21st century indigenous literature of North, Central and South America and across eight languages. With a focus on water as both physical substance and symbolic entity, and an important marker of the profound social and ecological transformations affecting the Americas (climate change, pollution, urbanization, cultural shift, etc.), I seek to initiate a new line of enquiry centred on one fundamental question: how are indigenous cultures (i.e., of pre-Columbian origin) adapting their traditional conceptions of human existence to a changing environment? As a laboratory of cultural transformation, literature is the logical place to look for new interpretations of human existence in the modern world, and water, circulating between bodies and geographies, is a key theme in which to find them.

Fishing (in) the past to inform the future

David Wilson

This paper traces the currents and countercurrents of knowledge shaping fisheries management and development programmes—particularly the friction between inherited colonial-scientific frameworks and the situated knowledge of communities. It draws on three international interdisciplinary projects: ‘One Ocean Hub’, ‘Lessons from Lake Malawi’, and ‘Colonial Currents, Contemporary Countercurrents’. Each paired historical analysis with environmental sampling, community engagement, and arts-based practice to investigate fisheries-related challenges across African contexts. At their core, these projects considered how communities relate to the environments they depend on, how that relationship is carried through heritage, and how it might shape more sustainable futures. In other words, questions of custodianship, connectivity, and collaboration — by water.

Speakers

• Aibek Samakov, Associate Director of the Cultural Heritage and Humanities Unit (CHHU), University of Central Asia, is an interdisciplinary researcher with over 14 years of experience in participatory research and capacity building. He has led projects on biodiversity, water resources, and climate adaptation in Central Asia, collaborated with UNESCO, UNEP, and IPBES, and taught at the University of Tübingen.
• Andrew Thomas is the Executive Officer of the Cooks River Alliance, a partnership of local government and water agencies working to improve the health and resilience of the Cooks River catchment, one of Australia's most urbanised river systems. With more than 30 years of experience spanning environmental management, urban water, asset management, research and consulting, Andrew has worked across government, industry and the not-for-profit sector to address complex environmental and socio-technical challenges. His interests include urban river restoration, catchment governance, community stewardship, and the role of blue-green infrastructure in creating more liveable and resilient cities.
• Arnaud Caiserman, Senior Research Fellow at the Mountain Societies Research Institute (MSRI), University of Central Asia, specialises in physical geography, remote sensing, and GIS. His research spans water resources, land degradation, and snow/glacier dynamics across Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Lebanon.
• Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris is an Australian and Swedish curator, writer and researcher with expertise in eco-aesthetics and specialisation in water. Based on Dharug and Gundungurra Country, she is a Senior Research Fellow at UNSW and part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S). Bronwyn maintains an independent curatorial practice and her first monograph was released with Routledge Environmental Humanities Series in 2024: The Hydrocene: Eco-Aesthetics in the Age of Water.
• Charles Piggott (University of Strathclyde) combines Literary Studies, Linguistics, Anthropology and Philosophy to explore how Indigenous literatures engage with questions of cultural memory and biocultural heritage. He uses methods and theories from the Environmental Humanities (particularly ecocriticism) to forge links between the Humanities and Sciences. His research and teaching focuses on literature produced in Spanish and four indigenous languages of Latin America: Yucatec Maya, Nahuatl and both Central and Southern Quechua, spoken in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, respectively.
• David Wilson (University of Strathclyde) is a historian focused on maritime, legal, and environmental history within the context of British colonialism between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, including the subjects of piracy, fishing, trade, and coastal communities. His current project focuses on the development and impact of fisheries governance in Africa under British colonial rule in the twentieth century.
• Holly O'Neil is a Bahrain-born, British anthro-artist who now works across Dharawal, Gadigal, Wangal and Gameygal Country. Professionally trained in both reportage illustration and anthropology, she is working to combine her two disciplines in experimental and informative ways. A PhD candidate at the University of Technology, Sydney, Holly's work spans gaps between fiction and non-fiction, human and more-than, and layers of time and place.
• Kefeng Zhang is a senior lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW Sydney. His research focuses on urban stormwater management, nature-based solutions, water-sensitive urban design, emerging contaminants and smart water systems. He works closely with government and industry to translate research into practical approaches for healthier and more resilient urban waterways.
• Michael Garbutt teaches experiential design at UNSW Sydney’s School of Art & Design where his research focuses on the nature of aesthetic experience in museums, galleries, and everyday life. The lead author of Mindful Eye, Playful Eye: 101 Amazing Museum Activities for Discovery, Connection, and Insight, Smithsonian Books (2024), he will be running mindful/playful workshops along the Cooks River from October to December 2026.
• Shannon Scrofano is a designer, educator, and climate advocate working at the intersection of interdisciplinary arts, design, ecology, and environmental justice. She teaches at CalArts and lives in the LA River Watershed in the Greater California bio-region.
• Soheil Ashrafi, Interim Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, University of Central Asia, is a scholar and thinker whose research examines how being shapes and is shaped by human agency in an ever-unsettled world. He has published peer-reviewed papers on hermeneutic phenomenology, aesthetics, design pragmatism, and cultural expression, and occasionally writes for the press on sociopolitical issues.
• Lucy Palmer, Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Central Asia, is an Australian journalist, writer, and educator. Her work explores storytelling, place, and lived experience, with current research on academic podcasting and public-facing scholarship. At UCA, she develops creative writing and media projects across Central Asia.
• Xinyue Liu is a researcher and visual artist at Rural Lab, Glasgow School of Art, exploring ecological grief and ghost species across Scotland's Highlands and Islands. She works across film, dance, and visual anthropology, asking how speculative art can help one live with the sorrow of a disappearing world.