Leaking Ocean
Saba Khan
Leaking Ocean
Single Channel Video
21 minutes
2024
‘Leaking Ocean’, based on the craft of glacier-grafting to repair glaciers by Balti communities in Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan. It is in collaboration with a team of local, Balti filmmakers, acclimated to take on the strenuous expedition. This proto-science of glacier-grafting can heal various geographies, spread over distance but connected through a shared biosphere. This craft practiced by their ancestors was lost with the burning of their libraries by invaders, and is being revived by a professor and sherpas.
Pakistan, a parched country, is heavily reliant on its rivers which are fed by 5000 glaciers that are in danger of drying up at the end of the century. The Balti communities rely on glaciers for agricultural and domestic use. As their water supply shrinks over time, they feel an urgency to use their ancestral knowledge for water conservation. Their harsh, frigid climate only allows a small window for sowing and cropping, which had to be strictly followed to avoid famines.
The region of Gilgit Baltistan is part of the ‘third pole’ and is in between two tectonic plates of Eurasia and India. The collision of these plates induced the high mountains that became hiding spaces for refuge. Drawing from the work of James C Scott, this isolated region called ‘zomia’, were safe spaces for runaways and those fleeing the state. Small hamlets were in isolation until a road network was built in the 1960s.
‘Zomia’ is no longer a hiding space, it is at the frontier of climate change and is heavily militarised because of its close proximity to borders. The opaque mountains, once used as a shield, are now sites for dams, development and infiltration by the state.
With climate change there are more occurrences of glacial lake outbursts and dry spells. Glaciers are natural water reservoirs that also cool the environment. The state is busy making concrete dam reservoirs by borrowing loans from the World Bank and China and have spiralled the country into debt.
As more glaciers will melt onto the valleys, the large amount of freshwater will drain into the Indian Ocean and will land up on the shores of the Arabian Peninsula. Freshwater mixed with salty water will create imbalance in the mangroves’ saline environment and will effect fish habitats,. The fresh glacial water will trigger algae to grow on banks and will clog desalination plants t in the riverless Arabian Peninsula.
The act of glacier-grafting is a ritual to acknowledge the glaciers as an evolving and shape-shifting being. Baltis believe the glacier and water as living beings that need protection and nurturing. This act of conservation and ritual are an extension of self-reliance practiced in the remote space of zomia.
Like the book of cosmography, Aja'ib al-Makhluqat (The Wonders of Creatures) by Qazwini, the proto-science of the Baltis is for stitching back nature, from the glaciers in north of Pakistan, to rivers in the south and mangroves of the Arabian Peninsula. Our geographies may seem distant and varied, but our biospheres are interlinked. A disruption in the glaciers can rupture ecosystems thousands of miles away.
World Premier at the High Line, New York
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Supported by 421 Abu Dhabi
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