Stories and Hopes of the Arrivals to Rhine-Main Archipelago

Leseraum: ARAL

From June to October we are reading together on the pluriverse of migrations, exiles, diasporas, displacements, memories, belongings, homelands, (destroyed) environments, embodied knowledges, and sensorial memoirs through the food-related heritage.

This time we are reading the collection of texts about yet another topos, historically subjected to the imperial violence - Aral. Aral Sea, once the fourth largest lake, is known as the place of the ecological disaster due to the Soviet Union’s irrigation experiments of redirecting Amu and Syr Darya rivers to cotton fields, resulting in the calamitous drying up of the lake. Despite the colonial drought, life in many shapes and forms persisted, and with it, the many stories of Before, During, and After. Aral is not a memory—instead, it carries the memories. Aral is the present, and only in the present the past and future stories can be told.

This collection of texts is the result of the Aral Culture Summit that inaugurally took place in Nukus, Karakalpakstan, in 2025. The summit is the result of the initiative to bring together artists, thinkers, and scientists to re-adress, revive and reconnect the cultural and ecological heritage of and around the Aral Sea ecosystem.

Aigerim Uzakbaeva is investigating cultural and linguistic heritage around the Aral Sea, with a special focus on the Qaraqalpaq language.

The reading format remains the same: always nearby and usually online. The frame is open:

~ each reads the text independently, partial readings are possible

The online reading sessions build on the outcomes of the workshop “Stories and Hopes of the Arrivals to Rhine-Main Archipelago” (May 2026) and continue the programme “Leseraum: The Metamorphosis of Arrivals and Hosts.” Over the following months, participants read and discuss five texts that explore the pluriverse of migration, exile, diaspora, displacement, memory, belonging, home, (destroyed) environments, embodied knowledge, and sensory memory, with a particular focus on food as a carrier of memory and storytelling.

• June 20th 2026: Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia's war
• July 25th 2026: Aral: Untold Stories from Before, During and After The Sea
• August 15th 2026: Food, Culture and Heritage
• September 5th 2026: Armenian Food: Fact, Fiction, and Folklore
• October 3rd 2026: Open Veins of Latin America

The reading will take place via zoom, please register by sending an e-mail to: de.colonialanguage@gmail.com

The de_colonialanguage collective, Manca Arnuš and Ani Menua (X3 PostOst Agency, PostOstCafe) bring together expertise in the fields of art, activism, and research within the context of migration processes and alternative knowledge production. They conduct transcultural work with diaspora communities and develop formats that combine public space, collective, and artistic practice. Organization of Online-Readings: Manca Arnuš