Dancing with the Waterwolf
- TOPOS
- Jan 6
- 5 min read
Graduation work by Rachelle Pruim
Landscape designer
Figure 1: Dancing with the Waterwolf, imagining a new Dutch water narrative. (Source: Rachelle, 2025)
For centuries, the Dutch delta has been shaped by a complex water management system that has enabled people to live safely below sea level. We pump away water with ease, constructing dikes, dams and sluices. Even the river was not spared: we managed to put her in a corset, confined her within dikes and groynes. Indeed, here in the Netherlands we live together inside a real “watermachine”. However, climate change now threatens the effectiveness of this watermachine, as rising flood risk and prolonged droughts challenge traditional engineered approaches. The shortcomings of our water machine are also becoming visible along my beloved river, the IJssel. In recent years, we have seen flooded quays, roads and floodplains around Zutphen and Deventer more frequently. The high-water wave surges powerfully through the IJssel, and she – the river – seems to move through the landscape almost ravenously.
Perhaps you can only reclaim a place once it has been taken from you. If you agree with me on that, then you may also feel that the river, at times slowly and at times very rapidly, is reclaiming its space within the landscape. In my view, this is not necessarily a negative development; it is also an opportunity for us as Dutch designers to attempt to rewrite our water paradigm, to search for a new Dutch water narrative – one that does not fight against the Waterwolf but learns to dance with her.
Within my thesis, titled Dancing with the Waterwolf, I present a conceptual framework that has a philosophical, phenomenological orientation, in which water is no longer regarded as a threat that must be brought under control, but rather as a dynamic, living entity: a vast, animate presence with which we can – or perhaps must – learn to coexist. The question: “How can we live in a wet, fragile delta?” became a guiding thread throughout the thesis. The philosophical framework is grounded in the idea of wetness and in the concept of the hyperobject. Let’s briefly look at both concepts.
Wetness is a concept introduced by Dilip da Cunha and Anuradha Mathur. To get a better idea of wetness, we can take a look at the gas giant Jupiter. When we look at Jupiter from a distance, it looks like a planet that has a surface. But when we move closer, we discover that Jupiter is made of gases. The same is true for water on Earth. From afar, water on Earth can be seen as bound and separate, but when we look closer, we discover that it is actually hard to draw lines between land and water. Through design, we have created the illusion of a clear separation between land and water. The concept of wetness invites us to become aware that we are not living in a world that has land and water; instead, we are living in an ocean of wetness, with its raining, hailing, evaporating, and clouding (Da Cunha, 2024).
Figure 2: On the left, an ocean of wetness that we inhabit. On the right, a world with a division between land and water. Through design, we have created the illusion of a clear separation between land and water. (Source: da Cunha, 2024)
Now, let’s turn to the hyperobject and see why wetness can be seen as a good example of a hyperobject. The term hyperobject is introduced by Timothy Morton, who uses it to describe things that are so complex, interconnected, big, and complicated that it is hard for us to fully understand them. Think of global warming or radioactive waste—things that are real and all around us, but that we can’t fully grasp (Morton, 2013). Morton introduces the concept of the Hyperobject through five key characteristics, and these help us understand why something like wetness fits this idea of the hyperobject. Like all hyperobjects, wetness is viscous; it is everywhere and in everything, from the soil beneath our feet to the very bodies we inhabit. Wetness is nonlocal, never confined to a specific place, but always rearranging itself between different locations. It is time-stretched, spanning from the ancient waters to the ongoing cycles of wetness that shape our world today. Wetness phases in and out of our perception; it peeks through, becoming visible to us in rivers, snow, or clouds. Finally, wetness is interobjectively perceived—we encounter it through its relationships with other entities. From this perspective, I began designing with and around the waters of the IJssel.
Through a design-led exploration grounded in the notion of wetness and the hyperobject, the research unfolds a set of guiding principles for imagining futures in which we do not fight the Waterwolf, but learn to dance with her — relational, speculative, and attuned to the shifting, living nature of water itself. In essence, the thesis seeks to give form to, and to imagine, what it would mean for the landscape – and the people within it – if the IJssel were truly to reclaim her space, or perhaps were given it back by us. Will we be living on stilts in the IJssel Valley of the future? Might homes be floating 50 years from now? How will our relationship with water change — will we one day cheer when it rains? And will everyone have their own boat?
Figure 3: Representations of the new water narrative. Relational, speculative and attuned to the changing, living nature of water itself. (Source: Rachelle, 2025)
Returning to the question: How can we live in a wet, fragile delta? The answer, I found, does not lie in tightening our grip on the watermachine, nor in further containing what resists containment, but in reimagining our relationship with water altogether. And for designers, that can begin with recognising water as a stakeholder at the drawing table. It is time to give shape to a new water narrative in more concrete terms. Such a radical shift is essential, because without it, we may find ourselves, a hundred years from now—citing Barry Lopez (2023)—searching for the boats we forgot to build.
Figure 4: Inhabiting an ocean of wetness. By 2075 the landscape has become wetter and warmer. New species find a home and humans adapt with new ways of living in the wet landscape. (Source: Rachelle, 2025)
Figure 5: Inhabiting an ocean of wetness. By 2100 the IJssel landscape has transformed into a highly dynamic, water-rich delta, shaped by climate adaptation and forward looking water policies. (Source: Rachelle, 2025)
References
Da Cunha, D. (2024, 28). Decolonizing wetness: it is where design begins [Video]. YouTube.
Morton, T. (2013). Hyperobjects Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World [Boek]. University of Minnesota
Lopez, B. (2023) Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World. Random House Trade Paperbacks.
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