Water Stories
In this section, we will engage with ten short documentary-style Water Stories from communities around the world. As we move through each story, we will practice seeing water not as a resource, but as a relationship—tracing its origins, pathways, and the ways it is held, shared, and understood across place. Over time, this process will shift from observation to creation, as we begin to document and articulate our own Water Stories—grounded in the specific waters, histories, and relationships that shape our daily lives.
What are Water Stories?
Who is Water Stories in partnership with?
Water Stories begins from a simple but often overlooked truth: relationship requires introduction. To come into right relation with water, we must first know it—not as an abstract resource, but as a living system we are already part of. Water moves through our bodies, our communities, and the landscapes we inhabit, yet many of us do not know where it comes from, where it goes, or how it is held in the systems around us. Covering over 70% of the Earth’s surface, water shapes climate, ecosystems, and cultural life, but in many highly developed contexts it has been rendered invisible—delivered through pipes, managed through infrastructure, and separated from the larger cycles it sustains. Water Stories is an invitation to reintroduce ourselves. Through these narratives, we begin to build kinship with the waters we encounter daily—tracing their origins, understanding their movement, and recognizing the ecological and cultural systems they support. In doing so, we shift from passive consumption to active relationship, opening space for reciprocity, responsibility, and learning.
This section is developed in collaboration with Paul O’Callaghan, founder of BlueTech Research and the documentary series Brave Blue World. BlueTech’s work has been instrumental in reframing global water conversations—bringing together innovators, scientists, and community leaders to explore how water challenges can be met with creativity, technology, and systems thinking. Through this partnership, Water Stories features ten voices drawn from this global network, each offering a distinct perspective on how water is understood, protected, and reimagined across contexts. These stories form an open-access entry point into the Living Water curriculum, bridging contemporary water innovation with ancestral and place-based knowledge systems. Together, they expand the narrative of water beyond crisis—toward possibility, connection, and the reweaving of human and ecological futures.
Documenting
LivingWater Stories
In this project, you will create a short documentary that explores your relationship to water in your local community. Rather than assuming that relationship already exists, you will begin by observing what is present—and what is not. You may find clear connections to rivers, rainfall, or community water systems. Or, you may discover that your relationship to water feels distant, hidden, or difficult to trace. You will follow that reality. Where does your water come from? How does it reach you? Where does it gafter it leaves your home? What systems—visible or invisible—shape your access to it?
Using film as your medium, you will document what you uncover. You might focus on a nearby body of water, a watershed, built infrastructure, or the pathways water takes through your daily life. As you create your documentary, you will ask questions, notice patterns, and reflect on what water reveals about your community—whether that reveals connection, disconnection, or something in between.
This project is not about having the right answer. It is about paying attention, telling a story, and beginning to understand your place within the larger systems that water sustains and moves through—even if that understanding begins with absence.
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Ten Geographies,
Ten Communities
Lima, Peru
Wuhon, China
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The Living Earth Curriculum is created by Julia Watson LLC and Melissa Hunter Gurney of The Omni Institute, based on the book ‘Lo-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism’ by Julia Watson and The Omni Institute’s educational theory by Melissa Hunter Gurney.
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