Inundometer Cartography

Espectrality and Climate Tragedy

Abstract

This essay is supposed to be a photographic result of the urban activity ‘Inundometer Cartography’, carried out in Alfândega Square, Porto Alegre, RGS, Brazil in 2025, one year after the historical flood occured in 2024. Inundometer, a two meters ruler, was marked at 1,72m, as that was the height the waters achieved in that part of the city. This ruler was installed in the urban center as an ephemeral monument and as a device of narratives trigger. The Inundometer also withstands the urgent everyday life, when shows the level achieved by the waters during the largest flood in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, turning the climate risk into a tactile and corporal experience for passersby. This activity is a result from a partnership between the university extension project ‘Cartography of Hospitality' and Memorial of Rio Grande do Sul, an institution of Culture Secretary of State, and they intended to encourage sensitive listening. The compiled material appoints to an affective cartography of the tragedy, that is presented here as a photographic essay.  During the event the participants were asked to measure the catastrophe according to their own bobies, sharing memories, testimonies and traumas that the buildings surrounding the region are not showing anymore.  Refering to Derrida e Mondzain, Inundometer, the activity and the photographies function as a specter that ceases the linear time, joining the material body to the absence of the water.  As grief is converted into creative and critical strength, the project promotes urgent protective actions and the re-invention of contemporary habitation.