A River Has No Shore

Along the course of the Rhône river, A River Has No Shore reflects upon ecological anxiety and solastalgia as emotional responses to climate change and its mediatization.

A River Has No Shore reflects upon the emotional responses of ecological anxiety and solastalgia that have been growing worldwide over the past few decades because of climate change and its mediatization; following the course of the Rhône river as a vehicle to situate, question, and navigate some of the elements that construct these perspectives of our changing planet.

According to the experts, such emotional disorders are caused by experiencing directly the consequences of climate change, or as a reaction to the way it has been communicated by the media, the cinema industry, and other agents, which often place the accent in apocalyptical narratives and imminent environmental collapse. Therefore, in contrast—or in harmony—with the views along the river, a selection of stills and subtitles from 7 different movies depicting climate change introduces how fiction represents the subject and emphasizes the tone of the iconography and narrative promoted by mainstream communication channels.

Flowing from an Alpine glacier all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, the waters of the Rhône run ice caves, rock cliffs, meadows, and forests; farmlands, villages, metropolis, and industrial sites. Like other rivers worldwide, it stands out as an environmental trait but also as a major socio-political feature that highlights the fragility of the binomial human-nature during the so-called age of the Anthropocene. Acknowledging the river(s) as an essential source for energy production or irrigation, but also as a force for increasing natural disasters such as floods, droughts, or pollution dissemination.

However, its waters are seen as an optimistic metaphor for an element in constant transformation into different states, and adapting to different environments, during a cyclical process that is never reaching an end. Confronting a paralyzing notion that we are approaching an end of the world because of climate change.

Initially thought as a photo-book, its structure and concept are inspired on the figure of a calendar, as a printed item used to plan and speculate with unclear future events. Along the sequence, the pages flow towards a future that is uncertain, and is at the same time a reality and a projection of what is going to come.

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2025

5 copies ed.

Soft cover

15 cm x 20 cm

200 pages

Profibulk 115 gr.