Relationships with waterbodies as activators
At the Splash Project, we believe in the power of the water to connect. We seek to foster positive
relationships with all water bodies through immersive learning experiences, research and visual/creative storytelling. We explore innovative ways to reconnect with who we are, our environment and each other through water. We acknowledge waterbodies as relational, with culture, history, identity, spirit,
responsibility, senses, psychology, behaviors, and emotions. By attending to water on its whole in this
way, we believe water is a powerful catalyst for personal and social transformation for human and non-human health and wellbeing.
The interactions of humans with water have a profound impact on our lives and on the earth. Our culture, language and values are shaped by our experiences and connections with this dynamic fluid that surrounds us, gives us life, and helps us create meaning from the beginning to end of every life cycle. Understanding this diverse relationship, we believe has the power to transform our connections with ourselves, with each other and with the natural world.
Our Team
Dr. Dacotah-Victoria Splichalova
Splasher
Hardwired in my being is my need for expression, connection, empathy, access and discovery. I consciously exercise these in my personal and professional lives as a storyteller, water researcher, surfer, identical twin, fisherwoman, and photography enthusiast.
Within these streams, people, discovery, and linking the two never ceases to inspire me. As a surfer and “Free Surf Lessons on Saturdays” founder, my fellow surfers have often accused me of being addicted to “stoke.” Though, not my own, but rather the stoke of new surfers watching them enter their unknowns, finding their edges, catching their first wave, and lighting up. Nothing fills me more than this process. So much so that I have, for long periods, witnessed myself not paddling out beyond my unknown breaks. A reminder that I too embody this practice– going beyond the furthest waves to expand my mastery, my comfort zone and all of what I can offer and give back to my community.
At the heart of it all are relationships—how we come into them, how they shape us, and how they are shaped in return. For me, they are grounded in humility and respect, and shaped through trust and vulnerability over time.
This same orientation carries through my work beyond the water. Stoke, for me, is no different from the spark I witness in my science journalism when a researcher explains what drove them to do their research or study in the first place. Whether researchers, research partners, or someone I meet for the first time, simple questions like what’s alive in you, what inspires you, or what do you need are essential to forming authentic connections and can be deeply moving, opening new edges of knowing for ourselves. What stays with me most is what emerges through these shared processes.
This orientation carries through all aspects of my work, from community-based storytelling and participatory filmmaking to research and facilitation. I am interested in how ways of knowing open through listening, curiosity, and relation with Water.
I hold a PhD in Resources, Environment and Sustainability from the University of British Columbia, where my work focused on reimagining water security through the non-material dimensions of water—relationships, meanings, identities, and responsibilities beyond water as H₂O. I reside in my beloved home base of Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico.
Through The Splash Project, I continue to convene cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogues that bring together Indigenous knowledge holders, researchers, artists, and practitioners to explore more relational and just approaches to water governance.