Adham Faramawy | Daughters of the River

Adham Faramawy, Daughters of the River, presented as part of Serpentine's Infinite Ecologies Marathon.

In Daughters of the River, Adham Faramawy incorporates dance, sound and spoken word to tell stories of the romances and toxicities of rivers and waterways. Borrowing from Alexander Pope’s poem ‘Windsor-Forest’, the performance slips between poetic and narrative storytelling, taking the audience on a fluid journey through these aqueous ecosystems. The performance explores the tense, often porous borders between purity and impurity while tracing the imperialist roots of popular waterways that serve as life-giving forces to millions. Drawing on history, mythology, fiction and queer desire to reveal the colonial undercurrents of rivers, Faramawy consequently identifies them as sites of ecological collapse.

Daughters of the River was originally commissioned and performed as part of Queer Earth and Liquid Matters in 2023, a programme of events that brought together artists, writers, filmmakers, and sound and architecture practitioners to explore decolonial and queer ecologies. The work will be restaged at Stone Nest in July 2024 as part of the Infinite Ecologies Marathon.

Presented in collaboration with Serpentine.

Curated and produced by Kostas Stasinopoulos, Curator, Live Programmes, Serpentine and Holly Shuttleworth, Executive Producer, HS Studio, with Daisy Gould, Assistant Curator, Live Programmes, Serpentine, Isobel Peyton Jones, Producer, Serpentine, Andy Downie, Production Manager, Velocet

Please note this event features unconventional seating, if you have any specific requirements contact info@stonenest.org.

Below Stone Nest will open from 7pm for pre and post-show drinks.

Image: Adham Faramawy, Daughters of the River. Queer Earth and Liquid Matters, part of Serpentine’s Back to Earth project, 16-17 July 2023, Stone Nest. Photo by Talie Rose Eigeland. Courtesy of the artist and Serpentine.

Stone Nest is an arts organisation and performance venue in the heart of London's West End, bringing exceptional and experimental art to a wide audience. A hidden gem nestled amidst the bright lights of theatreland, it offers a platform for bold, visionary artists and a space where audiences can encounter an eclectic programme of contemporary performance.

Stone Nest is an old building and unfortunately cannot currently accommodate electric wheelchairs. We can accommodate manually operated wheelchairs via a temporary ramp; please let us know that you are a wheelchair user when booking and whether a Companion will be accompanying you, and we will arrange a Companion ticket for you.