Visual Communication as Research Method

SoC: How does visual communication—through images, diagrams, layout, and material aesthetics—function not only as documentation but as a research method that produces knowledge about the water body rather than merely representing it?

Salt Traces: We often start by placing things next to each other and seeing what happens. A tanker meets a shoreline. A hand meets salt. Dreamy underwater landscapes and plants coming together to create a whimsical environment that doesn’t exactly illustrate the reality of many water bodies affected by climate change including the Caspian.

This visual language lets us think through our imagination. When different times, materials, and voices share the same surface, meaning forms between them. So visual communication isn’t there to illustrate research. It’s how we stay with the water long enough for it to speak back.