ABSTRACT
Starting with the idea of the planetary as a research context and the centrality of water within the climate crisis, in this chapter, the theory of the Hydrocene as a disruptive epoch emerges. Drawing on the work of Amitav Ghosh and Donna J. Haraway, in this chapter I propose the lens of the ‘natural-cultural water crisis’, and elaborates on its central pillars, alongside the social-cultural foundations of colonial-capital logics of seeing ‘water as modern,’ ‘water as resource’ and ‘water as (only) weather.’ With this understanding of the natural-cultural water crisis, the chapter proposes the Hydrocene as a disruption to the dominance of the Anthropocene. Following the academic and artistic call to arms for dismantling the hegemony of the Anthropocene, this chapter outlines pre-existing research on creating alternatives to the Anthropocene. Finally, this chapter shares why creating an alternative conceptual epoch is a curatorial undertaking of naming and defining natural-cultural turns, as well as the aims of the Hydrocene as a conceptual epoch.
