Drawing with Rivers

This public engagement workshop invited participants to reimagine the Limmat as a revitalised meandering river. Historically, the Limmat’s floodplains shaped Zürich and its sourrounding landscape and supported diverse habitats. However, over time, engineering interventions straightened and confined its course, reducing the river’s ecological diversity and its capacity for change. Using a collective drawing process, participants explored how the Limmat could once again accommodate dynamic flows and vitality. Prompts and questions written directly on the drawing surface guided the process. Every few minutes, participants rotated positions, responding to new prompts and building on each other’s contributions. In the final round, the group collectively painted the river’s course in watercolour, connecting individual contributions into a continuous meander. The exercise used drawing as a collaborative tool to revisit the river’s transformation and to speculate on future spatial and ecological scenarios for Zürich’s urban landscape.

Comissioned by AIA (Awareness in Art), Zurich, Kloster Fahr, 2025.