A5, 48 pages, Colour printing, Loop bound, Softcover, 2024

"Rivers, Weeds, Concrete" is part of our ongoing research into water and hydraulic systems. With the question "How do we perceive' a river?" in mind, we started to walk along nearby rivers—observing, recording, and reflecting.

In urban spaces, the river's presence is fragmented. Constantly interrupted by roads, privatized by residential areas and schools. In these constrained spaces, we become aware of the river's predicament. 

Concrete is a common material shaping the river, straightening it to meet urban land-use demands. The direction and energy of the water are altered by the rigid riverbanks, and further upstream, concrete dams and sluices control the flow. Today’s rivers are the products of human modification.

In the concrete, we always find weeds growing through the cracks. These plants challenge the illusion of infrastructure’s permanence, revealing nature’s active agency.

We treat weeds as a medium for perceiving rivers, a way to understand the relationship between humans, infrastructure, and nature. Using dots and lines as our narrative language, we record these river walks. We mark the distribution of weeds along the riverbanks through fill-in-the-blank cards, noting that different sections host distinct ecosystems. Simple lines capture the posture of the weeds—shaped by the wind and water currents.

This zine documents our evolving understanding of urban ecology and our growing familiarity with rivers and weeds. It also serves as an observation guide to urban rivers, a playful game, inviting readers to pick up a pen, go outside, observe a local river’s weeds, and create their own connections with urban ecology.

Bilingual (English & Chinese)

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