The research explores the Moscow Canal and its waters as the matter that bears witness to the violence experienced by human and nonhuman actors during the waterway’s construction between 1932 and 1937. By attending to the Canal’s flow, it argues that water flow can operate as an alternative archive, expand the limits of what is currently considered unarchivable, and contribute to more conventional forms of documentation. The project has two chapters. The first chapter develops the operative concept of material witness by Susan Schuppli and investigates the artificial flow through three functions: registration, disclosure, and preservation of the residues that remain present underwater yet missing from the Moscow Canal narrative. The second chapter approaches the Canal as infrastructure and analyses its archival capacities through the infrastructural lens.

PROJECTS