Aqueous Worlds: Art, Fluidity and Empire c.1600-1900

Water is a key enabler of movement, no more so than in the late early modern period. Water was a means to carry people and things across the world – accommodating intercultural exchange and hybridity, as well as facilitating colonial atrocities such as war, European imperialism, and the mass trafficking of enslaved people. The ocean also provided a wealth of ecological materials that could be utilised and exploited for artistic and everyday means such as oil, pearls, coral and various dyestuffs. However, although water was a key enabler of wealth and empire-building, it was also inherently fluid and ungovernable. The sublime power of water was a constant source of anxiety; being at sea could result in shipwrecks, unexpected attacks from both human and marine life, and the possibility of being lost at sea or even trapped in ice.

Building on themes of aquatic mobility, fluidity and power in relation to colonialism and empire, this panel calls for 20-minute papers focused on any intersection between visual and material culture and water, broadly conceived, within the period c. 1600-1900. We are particularly interested in papers that encompass global geographies, and/or that utilise ecological and blue humanities methodologies.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Emma Pearce, Glasgow School of Art, e.pearce@gsa.ac.uk