As the Port’s precinct undergoes rapid change, Aqueous Archives asks that we listen to the stories, history and knowledge that exists beneath colonial narratives.

Part alternative policy or radical map to another future, Aqueous Archives is an immersive publication moving between public installation and printed book form. The project brings together a collection of materials, ideas and narratives centring the Fremantle Port, both in its contemporary state and as a place of historical passage connecting diasporic communities to Walyalup via the Indian Ocean. Created by writers Timmah Ball and Kate Jama alongside collaborators, this project illuminates the narratives that government architecture and museums often neglect.

Through storytelling, archival activism, poetry, speculative fiction, text and paste ups, Aqueous Archives presents a counter narrative, archiving stories and futurism absent from institutions. Shedding light on un-recorded stories it asks us to consider new methods to the current government mechanisms which make decisions about the Port, land development, the ocean and migration.

With writing contributions from: Maria Osman, Haweya Ismail and Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker
Publication Design: Zenobia Ahmed
Editor: Ellen O’Brien