AC Discussion | 2020 Alternate Currents Working Group
Critic and curator Lucy Lippard once asked, “How well does culture stand up for nature?” Throughout 2020, Amplify’s Alternate Currents Working Group investigated, collaborated, and developed project based work that returned to that question time and time again. On November 19th, Corson Androski, Travis Apel, Erin Foley, Dawaune Lamont Hayes, Rynn Kerkhove, Alex O’Hanlon, Sarah Rowe, Angie Seykora, and Molly Toberer sat down for a virtual conversation, moderated by Annika Johnson, to discuss how culture stands up for nature, and water, more specifically, by centering concepts of reciprocity, care, and ecological justice in individual and collective creative practice.
Watch the full conversation, or read through the transcript below to find links to additional resources, and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Transcription
Moderator: Annika Johnson
Panelist 1: Rynn Kerkhove; Panelist 2: Angie Seykora; Panelist 3: Dawaune Lamont Hayes
Panelist 4: Sarah Rowe; Panelist 5: Travis Apel; Panelist 6: Alex O’Hanlon
Panelist 7: Erin Foley; Panelist 8: Molly Toberer; Panelist 9: Corson Androski
Date of Discussion: November 19, 2020
List of Acronyms: [AJ] = Annika Johnson; [RK] = Rynn Kerkhove; [AS] = Angie Seykora; [DLH] = Dawaune Lamont Hayes; [SR] = Sarah Rowe; [TA] = Travis Apel; [AO] = Alex O’Hanlon; [EF] = Erin Foley; [MT] = Molly Toberer; [CA] = Corson Androski; [AM] = Audience Member
[PF] Welcome I think we’re going to go ahead and get started. It’s great to everybody here for tonight’s Alternate Currents panel discussion. Excited you all could join us and a special thanks to the Nebraska arts council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment whose support makes virtual programs like this possible.
My name is Peter and I’m the Program Director here at Amplify Arts. For anyone who’s new to Amplify or Alternate Currents, I can say just briefly that Amplify’s mission is to support unity and innovation in the arts and Alternate Currents is one program that helps us do that by contextualizing national and international topics in the arts with responses from people closer to home. In 2019, we launched the program with the Alternate Currents blog at amplifyarts.org/alternate-currents and bi-monthly conversation series. Throughout 2020, we’ve dedicated the blog and conversation series to discussions around environmental and ecological justice and added a collaborative working group of ten artists and culture workers who’ve developed project-based work in response to those subjects and issues around water more specifically, which is fitting in a year where fluidity and adaptation have been absolute essentials.
And I’ve just got to take a minute before introductions to thank this group of amazingly dedicated individuals for sticking with us and making space for this program with a terrific amount of thoughtfulness, labor, and care during a year that’s been complicated on so many levels.
I can’t emphasize enough what a special group of people this is. To introduce them (if you all could give a quick wave when you hear your name) we have with us tonight: Corson Androski, Travis Apel, Erin Foley, Dawaune Lamont Hayes, Rynn Kerkhove, Alex O’Hanlon, Sarah Rowe, Angie Seykora, and Molly Toberer. Also want to say thank you to Michaela Wolf who couldn’t join us tonight but added so much insight and spirit to the group this year.
Just a couple quick housekeeping items before we dive in: a video of tonight’s discussion with transcription will be posted to the AC Blog within the next week or two and the Alternate Currents Working Group exhibition will open at Amplify’s Generator Space on Dec 11th, so you’ll have a chance to see the projects group members discuss tonight in both physical and virtual space. Applications for 2021’s AC Working Group are open now through Nov 29th and you can find more information about that at amplifyarts.org if this seems like a program you might be interested in participating in.
And I think that’s it. I’d like to invite you all to mute your microphones for the first portion of the discussion until the Q&A at which point you’re more than welcome to unmute and ask questions or make comments or enter them into the chat. With that, I’ll turn it over to our fantastic program co-failictor: musician, art historian, and Associate curator of Native American Art at the Joslyn Art Museum Annika Johnson.
[AJ] Hello! Thanks, Peter.
Thanks everyone for being here. I definitely echo Peter's sentiments about the group. We've been meeting on Zoom for most of the year. I think by our third meeting, we had to shift to Zoom and it's an imperfect platform but despite that, I really feel that a sense of community has formed with this group. I'm just very grateful for that, so thank you to all of you.
I'll give some broad framing thoughts and then I have individual questions for different group members. After that, we'll open it up to a bigger conversation. So how does culture stand up for nature? This is a question that we came across in a reading by Lucy Lippard in her book called, Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics and Art in the Changing West. The group has been circling around this question throughout multiple discussions and we've been thinking about its very broad implications. What are the ethics of an artistic practice during an ecological state of emergency? What does this look like in the studio and in the gallery?
I'm new to Omaha and I noticed pretty quickly the art community’s deep awareness of land usage in Omaha and Nebraska--in the plains region--and the history of this. I think that everyone in the group would agree with me when I say that how we treat our environment reflects and also shapes community. So, community's been a big part of our conversations in the group this is manifested in an on-the-ground practice. It's more than being conscientious of materials and waste. We've spoken at length about collaboration, engagement, community, and we'll discuss these things further tonight.
The group narrowed in on water as the topic to focus on and we can discuss an exhibition that everybody's work will be in starting in December. [Group members] have taken water samples, filmed water, recorded water, examined the legal rights of water, and assessed our physical and emotional relationship to this essential life element. Another part of this has been thinking about how humans and non-humans relate and how we respect the rights of bodies of water, [which is an idea rooted in] Indigenous philosophy. Shout out to Robin Wall Kimmerer, one of our favorite authors that we read as a group. Her writing has really informed our thinking. So thanks to her and Indigenous people who shared this understanding of relationality with all of us.
With that, I'm going to dive in. My first question is for Corson and Rynn. You two have both been addressing spatial conceptions of water. In Corson's case, they've been thinking about water as it pertains to alternate forms of mapping and for Rynn, Rynn's been taking audio recordings of water and is creating a [musical] composition. I'm wondering if the two of you can talk about your projects a little bit more and how they help reorient us, meaning humans. How do they reorient our relationship to water?
[CA] Yeah, I could start and say a little bit about the project i've been working on. Let me see if I can share my screen. The project I'm working on is an experimental mapping project. The idea is, if we take this little 3D mock-up of the gallery space we have down on Vinton Street, to take the watershed in the area surrounding the gallery and map it onto the walls of the gallery. This is inspired by a teaching exercise I saw that Zoe Todd had her course on Indigenous philosophies. You can find that at www.fishphilosophy.org. All the materials are posted there; it's great. Please look it up. This exercise that she developed asks you to take some post-it notes and then think of a water feature near you that's important to you and write it on post-it note and then put it on the wall toward the direction of the feature. If there's a creek that's important to you toward the north, then you put it on the north wall and that way, even though you're sitting in a room, you are positioning yourself in relation to the watershed at all times and building up this passive awareness to something that our culture and our built environment really tends to obscure. In our day-to-day lives, we don't see much of the watershed, we don't really interact with it, and we don't have much of a sense of accountability toward caring for it or an appreciation for what it does for us.
So in adapting this to a visual medium, part of the idea is to cultivate that passive awareness. Part of it is also, to a point that Zoe Todd made in developing this exercise, she was also hoping that this would expand awareness of Indigenous territories beyond the sort of low-level abstract awareness we have. Most people understand that we are on colonized land and Indigenous Nations and territories were here prior to settlement, but we don't really have any concrete thing around us to attach that. Looking at a map like this, we're just looking at the watershed. [Her exercise] makes a lot more room to do the work of considering these rivers were not just intended to mark out boundaries, like many of them do here around Omaha, but they were absolutely essential to [Indigenous] cultures. Normally a map just looks at borders of the settler colonial state and its infrastructure--roads, buildings, borders--but it’s not trying to [help us] position ourselves objectively. [With this project that focuses on relational positioning instead] instead, the hope is that it opens up some of the work to address that environmental injustice.
[AJ] Corson, can you explain how this is going to appear in the gallery and the pigment [you’ll use]? I think that would be interesting to share with people.
[CA] Oh, right. So the idea is that this 3D mock-up will be projected on the gallery and we'll be painting over it. When thinking about using a big amount of paint in the gallery, I was worried that it would be materially opposed to the values of the piece if this was to use paints that were toxic and would ultimately end up in the watershed that we're depicting. I tried to do a little research and learn more about natural pigments and I'm going to try to do all this painting with egg tempura using natural pigments. One of those pigments will be a slate, just the stone ground to a really fine powder and mixed with egg yolks. I'm excited. I hope it works. We'll see.
[AJ] Thanks for sharing that. I think it will reorient us in that space. Already, what you said about your pigments--if we're thinking about the watershed, this brings an awareness within the space is shaping that decision around what materials to use. Rynn, I'm curious to hear more about your project. I think there are overlaps in terms of this relational, or even affective, relationship within the gallery space to water. Will you share what you're working on?
[RK] Yeah, I definitely see the parallels between my and Corson’s pieces. I think with both of our pieces, as folks go throughout the gallery and view the other pieces, there will be this ambient or passive awareness of Corson's work in the gallery and then my work, my audio playing overhead. I think for both of us, perhaps our pieces serve to highlight a passive awareness that people have about our relationship to water and sort of reconceptualize it.
As a little background, I've been playing music my entire life--various instruments since I was 6 and performing in orchestras and bands and all that. So, I was really excited to be able to do a musical piece for the exhibition and I think the sound of water is so crucial to how both we as humans, and non-human beings, interact with it. I think, like most of us, we have sort of a passive or intuitive understanding of that as evidenced by all the soothing soundtracks that exist in the world. It seems like in a white noise machine, most of the settings are related to water: thunderstorms, tides on the beach, rainforest, stuff like that. My goal with this piece is not simply to treat water as like an ambient noise on its own, but to diverge from the unorganized way in which we normally hear it. That way of hearing it, like listening to a babbling brook, is fantastic and wonderful and a beautiful experience on its own, but I wanted to take the sounds of water in different contexts and sort of place them within a structure. For example, I'm doing a couple different pieces inspired by water in different contexts and one of those pieces focuses on water in a domestic context. Folks in the group have been awesome and sent me recordings of water that they've recorded themselves, whether it's in their homes or out in more natural settings. Molly sent me a recording of her pouring out a 2 liter bottle of water from Coal Creek and when I was listening to it, I heard a rhythm in a little chunk of the recording as the water was being poured out. I cut that snippet and I built the rest of the piece out around it, so you have that sound of the water being poured out happening throughout the piece.
What's cool is that my audio software just picked up that there was a beat in it and set the software to the tempo of the water. It's just further evidence from our artificial intelligence that there's a rhythmic component to water. Water is musical in its own right. To me, a tide rolling in on a beach or a tea kettle screaming is musical. What i hope to be able to do with this project is communicate the idea that water is music by placing it in a musical context with which we, as humans, are a little more familiar--more standard instrumentation, like chord structures and melodies rounding out the water sounds--not because I think that water on its own is inferior to our more human form of music, but just to draw our attention to the inherent musicality of water. There's so much musicality in the water that we can integrate it into other forms of music we're more familiar with.
[AJ] That's awesome. I love what you said about water not being ambient noise. I think there's something to both of your projects that's about making something we take for granted a little bit more present. That transitions nicely to my next question which deals with water as a “resource,” quote-unquote, to be “managed.” Big air quotes there. This is for Dawaune, Molly, and Alex. The three of you have [developed] research focused practices or projects where specific research plays a really important role. You've been looking into how the Missouri River and its water have been managed, or mismanaged, at the municipal level. I’m interested to hear from the three of you what this research process has looked like. What have been some of the challenges and surprises? What have you found in your research on the Missouri River and how does it intersect with your practice and your work at large? It's a big question but I know all of you will have wonderful things to say.
[MT] Hi everyone! I'm Molly. I've been participating in this group with the hopes of reconnecting with where I live. I've been away from this region for about 25 years, although I was born here. When I joined the group, [I thought] it would be helpful for me to use the landscape and the region as a way to reconnect with where I live and try to give my work some grounding qualities that it really needed to reset. I am a visual artist. I was a sculptor making objects for a long time and in the last 5 years, I've really pivoted away from wanting to make more junk and trash to show in a gallery. So my research for my projects was really solely based on finding new platforms to tell stories to reflect on the research, new visual ways of collaborating. The group was awesome to go on this journey with me.
Over the course of the time that we've spent together, I discovered a couple new tools. One of them is a 3D projector that actually functions as a computer, a scanner, and a projector all-in-one. I’m excited to play with it to display some content that I've been working on. I've been working with the state of Nebraska's water quality. I also discovered a storytelling platform through an online map-making community called Esri and I'm working on a story map to tell the story of what I've found with Nebraska's water quality. We live in a city, so the water has to pass many, many standards of quality assurance so that it actually is safe enough to drink but the big thing here that everybody may, or may not, know is that there are contaminants and pollutants in our water that we drink even though we don't see them. My research was really based on mapping out some of these areas in Nebraska that are over safe levels. I’ll just show you a couple clips of my story map and then I'll let some other people talk about their projects.
Okay, this is the platform and I'll just go ahead and play it so it kind of scrolls through some of the information that I'm learning. You can access some of these maps through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln archive. I had to relearn all of the tributaries in our region. Like I said, I dove into technology. I dove into nanotechnology. I dove into what kind of research is being done to clean our water. Nebraska has very dirty agricultural runoff areas that are not safe and it's really sad because we can't see that but we drink it every day. This story map goes through all of my research and it takes you on a journey through Nebraska.
The last thing I'll show is one of the clips from my projector. This is something, as I was learning the software, I had to teach myself to use. Here's just a clip of me projecting some environmental content onto my garage.
[AJ] Molly, you've been working with archives of information that already exist. You're finding this online. Dawaune, I'm curious to hear you talk about your project a little bit because your approach to research is entirely different. You've been gathering actual samples of water from different sites. I think that's an interesting contrast and approach. Tell us more about your work on the Missouri River
[DLH] Certainly. Working on the river has been really awesome. I'm born and raised here in Omaha. I've known the Missouri most of my life, but being in the city, we don't really seem to acknowledge that or spend much time talking about its contents. Molly mentioned contaminations and pollution. You can go to the Metropolitan Utility District’s website and you can pull up their most recent water quality report. In the beginning, it will list the types of contaminants that are [common] in our source water. They also publish their tests of what the composition of the water is after they treat it, but the issue is that the source water is polluted with agricultural runoff, poor wastewater management, and stormwater. There's a multi-billion dollar investment CSO project across Omaha that's replacing the sewer separation project that was supposed to be subsidized in the 70s, but they didn't do it. Now we have to pay for it and that's what's on our water bill. It's ultimately [meant] to separate the water so that our stormwater is going into the river instead of going into the wastewater treatment facilities where, when it floods, they have to release massive discharges of untreated wastewater. Last year, when we had the floods in the spring that took out many wastewater treatment plants, we were dumping 25 million gallons of raw sewage into the river every single day. That has an impact. So, I was really curious to know where the Missouri River begins, where the river comes from. We see these massive moving bodies, these flowing arteries that carry power and water and all these things that we need, but where do they come from?
Someone had told me years ago that the headwaters of the Missouri are clear. That was hard for me to believe because the waters of the Missouri I've seen my whole life have not been clear. So in September, I went on the road for 10 days with a friend of mine. We went through Wyoming and Montana, up to Glacier National Park, through Yellowstone and the Tetons. On our return, we stopped at the headwaters of the Missouri where we were able to collect water samples. The goal was to collect these samples and get them tested, but I also wanted to spend some time being present in the water and encountering it. Here is [a video of] the headwaters in Three Forks, Montana where the Jefferson, Madison and the Gallatin Rivers converge. We'll see how clear the water is. It was a really cool, beautiful day.
We later collected another sample from Oacoma, which is in South Dakota, on our way back from the Badlands and it's an entirely different, much wider part of the Missouri River so you see this massive expanse from the headwaters that were actually very gentle and still. The contents of this water were much more stone heavy. Then, just two weeks ago, we took a sample down in Bellevue right off of Fontenelle Forest and [another] right at the shores of the [Bob Kerrey] Pedestrian Bridge.
Travis and I are working together to test all of these [samples] and we'll be able to identify the compositions of these waters--metals, insolubles, chemicals, minerals, bacteria or anything that might be living--to gain an understanding of [how water quality changes throughout the region]. From the headwaters to Oklahoma, which is one of the widest parts of the river, what passes through our wastewater treatment facilities? What are we dumping downstream? Is there a difference? We have film footage of collecting the water samples and the ceremony of spending time with water, but also a focus on what is in this water and what we can do about it. By taking samples at different parts of the river, we can identify any construction zones, concrete facilities, chemical plants, large parking lots, marshlands or other things we could identify as potential areas where there might be significant runoff of various types. This will come together in conversations with folks from MUD about their plans and what people can actively do to improve the water quality. Right now, we use chloramine, a chloride-based derivative to clean our water. That's why, in the spring, you can have a really strong chlorine taste and smell because they're doing that to offset blooms from algae and other pollutants that grow when it's warm. They'll say on the MUD website that warm-blooded animals can drink that water and be fine but cold-blooded animals cannot. So like don't put your pet fish at home in tap water. You have to have a filter because that base we use to clean our water of all the pollutants in the source water is not healthy for them. All that to say, know what's in the water so we can do something about it.
[AJ] Water quality this is a concern for everybody in the group and there are very different ways in which you're documenting what water quality looks like. Molly, you're showing these changes over time on this very broad scale and engaging with these physical locations also on a broad scale. Alex has a strong temporal dimension to her work too. Alex has been working in archives and I am so curious to hear what you're finding, where you're struggling, and what your research on the history of the channelization of the Missouri river has been.
[AO] Yeah, I'd say that my project is a little bit more about the engineering of water and waterways. I’m just gonna give my quick spiel that I always give. I was working in South Omaha and found out there's an old building that says “Curo Mineral Springs” on the side and it turns out that underneath that building is a carbonated mineral spring. Doing a little bit of research, I found out that they used to actually bottle the carbonated mineral water. That's why that building's there. Then doing more research, I found out that there's actually carbonated mineral springs all over Omaha but the city has been built up around them so we really don't know that they're there anymore, unless we do the research. And that research is really hard. I called through to like a couple of different agencies who have been kind of upset with me for calling them because they don't understand what I'm asking when I ask for maps of the ground water under the city or maps of all the springs in the city. They're just like, “Look lady, I'm busy here. I don't know what you need.”
So I decided to go to something that maybe would be a little more widely known and set my sights on the Missouri River because I knew that the Missouri River had been channelized. I had always heard that when they channelized it, they channelized it up against the bluffs of Omaha and that's why Council Bluffs [IA] will flood more in big rain events because there's more flood plain on the Iowa side of the river. That was pretty much all I knew about it. In researching the channelization of the river, I found out that the Missouri River at Omaha wasn't actually channelized until the late 1940s early 1950s, which just kind of blew my mind to think that [happened so recently]. Thinking about that, I wanted to find pictures of the river at different points in time to show how it's changed. That's actually been really difficult. There are a lot of photos of the old Asarco plant or of a road, or someone standing next to the river looking north, but there are very few photos of just the river. I think, with Covid, it's been a little bit more difficult because I've been doing all of my research online. I think what's really been working out the most has been calling people, asking questions, and then following their tips of the next person to talk to. And so talking to people, they're either telling me their stories, or what they've heard, or pointing me to other resources. There's a lot of good projects and I'm still trying to put together what I want.
Unfortunately, my project has never been done before so the resources are not on a plate ready to grab. I'm definitely having to do a little bit of rummaging. I think something that has really been working is talking to lots of people. I constantly need to rephrase my question to get what I'm looking for, or to get people to understand what I'm looking for. They're like, “You want an old picture of the river?” I'm like, “I want a specific old picture of the river.” That's kind of where I've been and it's been interesting, like I said, this sociological learning of how to phrase the question and figuring out exactly what I want. What I'm trying to say is that the river was engineered by people and during this process, there has been a lot of dealing with people and trying to learn that history. That was something that kind of came out I think it’s sort of an interesting aspect [of the project] as well.
[AJ] That's super interesting, [especially the idea that] historically, the camera's been pointing at industry essentially and documenting industry instead of the water. Thank you, the three of you, for sharing. There's so much data out there to be found, and that has been found already, and much to do with it still.
I'm going to shift a little bit. I have a question for Travis and Angie. You two both come from backgrounds in sculpture and I think you've diverged in your projects pretty significantly and in very exciting ways. You're both working on projects that are very future forward, looking toward the future and collectively envisioning a future. I'm wondering if you can discuss your projects a bit further and how they extend the invitation to examine our relationship to water through the lens of reciprocity instead of “management?”
[AS] Sure, I'll start. So as you mentioned, I come from a more traditional background of making objects that exist in a traditional gallery space and so this entire working group has been a very different way to approach objects and materials in the world around me than as I normally would in my studio. My research is taking the form of a written, working and progress document. I would call it more of a declaration of our relationship to water as a non-human being. Certainly we can care for and appreciate water, but it must be in the way that we deeply honor, value, and consider it as the substance of all life and understand that it is sacred.
A lot of my my project and research comes from this point of view, like the rights of legal personhood to water and the way that water must be treated, honored, and respected Your question, which deals with reciprocity, when I think of what reciprocity is, it's exchanging things with mutual benefit, typically between two people or persons. That exchange can be, and is done, with water as well. Water is a being, but once again, a non-human being
So my research is tapping into Indigenous philosophy that isn't new, but it's something that we can honor and learn from and it can influence our understanding of a reciprocal relationship with water. I have a quote here that I think summarizes my research quite well. It's from Dr. Kelsey Leonard, a water scholar and protector advocating for Indigenous water rights. She states that, “Legal personhood actually restores the ability for Indigenous communities and peoples to adhere to and fulfill their responsibilities as stewards and protectors of the water.” It's really a unique invitation to contemporary water conflicts and struggles and I'm hoping that through my research, I can bring this sort of awareness to the way that we understand and respect water as a being.
[AJ] This is a working document, right?
[AS] Yes, and I think it’s important to note that this is a working document in the sense that I hope for my research to continue past this working group. It's not going to exist in this nicely packaged thing with a bow tied on top that's presented in the gallery. It will certainly be a fluid work in progress and part of an ongoing discussion.
[AJ] Speaking of fluid work in progress, Travis will actually have a water filtration system in the gallery. Can you talk a little bit about reciprocity in relation to your practice, Travis?
[TA] Yeah, thank you, Annika. As Annika mentioned, I have a background in sculpture and also in design and organic gardening here in Omaha for the past about 20 years. The project I'm working on is in collaboration with what Dawaune is doing in terms of water testing. We're testing the water before and after the filtration system. I basically started off when we had the bomb cyclone, those terrible storms, and the ice wiping out fields and bridges. There was an alarming scare that the water plant was [breaking down] and that made me think, water is life; it's important. Also, like what Angie's said about our relationship with water, I'm thinking about my project as an investigation of forming a relationship. Like with any other relationship, you ask questions. [My project asks] the water, where did you come from? What kind of baggage are you bringing with you? What kind of trauma have you endured?
I'm making a functional sculpture with two filters, filter A and filter B. Filter A is basically filtering tap water and my goal is to test it before I start filtering it for a month and then to test it again afterwards. I'm more curious about tap water because it's deemed safe. I wonder if we will be able to taste it and see if that chlorine flavor disappears. With filter B, I'm actually taking water from Coal Creek, which is in my neighborhood, and testing before and after, but testing for any microbial bacterial stuff in the water. I know that the water is carrying a lot of contaminants as we've discussed earlier--agricultural, industrial stuff, possibly some heavy metals--so I'm curious to get a water signature before and after. The reason filter B is a bit different is because I will be dosing it with ultraviolet radiation in the reservoir where the water returns after it goes through the filter. It will be in the tank with the fluorescent lights that are on all the time throwing UV radiation at it, which is known to kill any microbial life in the water. The medium that I'm passing the water through is biochar, which is basically charcoal made from wood scraps that I gather in the yard. I convert it into charcoal [and the water] pass through the charcoal and local sand and gravel that have been cleaned and rinsed and some yucca fibers, which are supposed to have some healing properties, and also some corn husk fibers. I rinse everything as best as I can because the idea is to not necessarily filter the water from carrying these types of mediums but rather than to see if it's possible to clean and heal the water. That's my goal. In a way, it's about trying to clean the water and make the water healthy so it can be given back to gardening and the possibility of decentralizing water purification.
I think there's an opportunity, if something like this works, depending on the results after the end of the month, for community sharing of water when a catastrophe happens. It's an opportunity to learn that [we] could take care of [our] water on [our] own, [outside metropolitan utility districts].
[AJ] I like that you talk about healing the water. That transitions nicely to my last question. Thanks, Angie and Travis. I feel like, for all of you, there's so much to talk about. I know we are running up on eight o'clock here and I want to talk to Sarah and Erin about their practices and what they've been working on and how their practices promote healing and restorative justice.
[SR] I have to say thank you to Travis and Annika for mentioning the word “healing.” My work relies heavily on ritual, not just as an artist but in my daily life, and is inspired by Indigenous ceremony. I brought in a meditation piece for this exhibition, along with Michaela Wolf, and I'll mention I'm Lakota and an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. I see every step I take on this earth and along these waters as an act of prayer for healing and the well-being of this water. Water, like all living beings, has memory. I think it's important we have these intimate connections with different bodies of water in this region, so I wanted to make a visual record within this entire group of waters that we have a connection with, whether we're walking or drinking it or putting our feet in it.
Michaela and I have both worked with textiles, so we made this cascade of repurposed fabrics with hand stitching, kind of like footsteps. I would compare it to a rosary. I use a lot of prayer ties in my sculptural work and I see hand stitching as that same sort of prayer and meditation, so I was really excited to get this going with Michaela. We have this cascade of fabric that we'll be projecting images of different waters onto. It's almost like a quilt of light and water of actual images of different bodies of water that [members of this] group have a personal connection to. I am really excited to see how this interacts with Rynn's sound piece as well--the sound of water, which is a grounding force. I love that Western medicine has recognized that as well. The sound of water reconnects us in a really primal way, in a sacred way. I'm excited to see how this all comes together. I have no idea what it's going to look like, or sound like, and I think that's really exciting. I’m not a huge planner and I love when things kind of unfold in this way.
[AJ] Thanks, Sarah. I do feel like there are so many connections across the work in the show. Erin, can you talk about how you've decided to contribute to this group and discuss re-platforming and how that fits into our discussions?
[EF] Sure. Thank you, Annika and thanks to everyone joining the panel. I guess to speak to everyone's point, we think of water as fluid and we've been working in this group all year long. We've switched to Zoom and the readings and ideas that really stuck with me, dealt with gender equity and climate change. More specifically, I got interested in equity over the course of the summer and I had some larger, overly ambitious projects that also [posed some ethical questions for me personally], so I thought the best thing I could do in terms of equity within this group would be to re-platform my position and stipend to Thalia Rodgers. They're an amazing artist and I love the work that they're producing. They’re a person of color and to provide more equity, inclusivity, and diversity within the group, I'm kind of just handing it over to them to have complete creative control [and that’s the project]. So you have to go to the exhibition to see the work, which is going to be great.
[AJ] Wish Thalia could have joined us today, but like Erin said, you should all um join us at some point to see the exhibition. It opens on December 11th and Peter can jump in here with more details regarding safety protocols for visiting the space. It's appointment only at Generator Space [1804 Vinton St, Omaha].
I want to open it up to everybody who's joined us today to see if there are questions. You can unmute yourself and ask a question or type it into the chat--whatever you're comfortable with. You can ask questions to the group as a whole, specific members, or maybe our group members have questions for each other?
[AM] I think this is great. I'm Alex's mom. I joined because I heard about this and I think it's fantastic that you guys are doing this. What do you recommend at home for water?
[MT] I've done quite a bit of research on that because I'm trying to build my studio in a way that uses resources very conservatively. Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to get rid of nitrates unless you do reverse osmosis or distillation. Both processes are expensive and also water waste. The best thing is going to be to really advocate for [policy that prevents] nitrates from entering into our water because they do cause cancer.
[AO] Good things that you can lobby for are programs that pay farmers to plant native plants along waterways. Those take up a lot of the nitrates and phosphates that run off farmland into the waterways. That's something that you can lobby for at the state level. States have had [programs like that] in the past, so there is precedent for it.
[MT] Yeah and Nebraska does have a program that started last year, and there are quite a few cities that are participating, that funds planting of non-conventional cover crops off-season so that they can do exactly what Alex said. Whatever you can find out to promote that, it does reduce the nitrate runoff considerably.
[RK] To bring that back to your own home, if you do have a yard, think about Alex's point about planting native grasses along waterways. Lawns are functionally not a whole lot better than parking lots, or impervious services like roadways, in terms of capturing runoff. If you do have a lawn, there's an opportunity there to plant rain gardens [or other feasible systems to mitigate runoff].
[DLH] I also recently acquired a rain barrel and put that under one of my gutter spouts and then used that to water various parts of the garden. I'm really curious to see what the results of Travis' filters look like.
[AM] I'm curious to see what the results of the testing of the water barrel water would be compared to the water you get out of your sink.
[MT] The thing about water barrels is that it doesn't get into the runoff of the concrete and it won't pick up any pollutants because it's coming straight from the sky but you do have to be careful of other elements that can grow. There are certain algaes that are poisonous to humans and there are other things that can grow in your barrel. You do have to take care of that as well.
[AM] Do you add vinegar?
[MT] I'm not a specialist on what you actually add. I do know that there are household things you can do to treat collected water from your roof or your rain barrel.
[AJ] Do we have other questions?
[AM] Hi, my name is Emogene Cataldo. I'm joining you from Brooklyn, New York, steps away from the Gowanus Canal and the Hudson River. Auspiciously, this week is the beginning of the cleaning of the Gowanus Canal. They're just beginning to dredge up the sludge--10 feet of sludge in the Gowanus Canal. I have loved listening to all of your projects and I'm so fascinated by your work. I would love to hear how you envision connecting with other communities around bodies of water and reaching out outside of your local context. Thank you so much.
[AJ] That's a great question Emogene. Thanks for asking that.
[MT] We all spent the last session talking about doom and gloom about how we're all connected by this huge, global problem. I think we all can agree that we're all connected, so why not share knowledge with other communities and get other local entities involved? The structures are similar in cities and rural communities. This is not a problem that's unique to our city.
[DLH] Molly makes a great point about connectivity. It's funny that you're in Brooklyn because I was inspired by a copy of the Brooklyn Rail, the River Rail issue, which is annual, I think and centers on water. It was tabloid size with stories of water and pictures and projects and descriptions of places all over the world. Seeing that made me think about what's happening on the Missouri. I think because our collective pieces [place an emphasis on local specificity], we're able to demonstrate some examples of what people can do in their local contexts. Like, you can go take a sample and send it to a lab. You can talk to your public utility. There people who represent boards and districts [who influence] the protection of your water long term. I think with each of our projects, we're able to provide an action item, or a way to demonstrate that ceremony, that ritual, that connection to water.
[SR] I have to say this has been a great chance for conversation and brainstorming. I've been in conversation with several artists from across the country and as things reopen, I'm sure a lot of things will unfold from the conversations we've been having in this small group. Outwardly, I think [we’re] planting the seeds, in a way. We've been doing some prairie visits to find ways to support the quality of soil and the health of the water systems that are underneath the ground. I think as artists and community members, those are the conversations we should be having right now. From there, we can decide what to do next as the world reopens.
[DLH] Quickly, to Sarah's point, water is going to be integral to any solution addressing Covid. A vaccine is a liquid that's mostly comprised of water and at all points that water is going to be essential to addressing the health challenges that we're encountering right now. If we're not protecting it and ensuring it's safety and learning how to cleanse and heal and release the trauma that's been enacted upon it, then we'll continue to take that inside of our bodies. That's when we start to have these dis-eases. I'm just excited to know what the conditions are so that we can help to change them.
[AO] To the question of how we take this out to other communities: I’m hoping that these conversations, and through research and like sharing with folks, that we have these conversations more frequently, more regularly. It is really important and, like what Dawaune said, water is integral to what happens with Covid. Some of the rollbacks, like on the Clean Waterways Act that have been happening lately seriously threaten water and when water is threatened, we're threatened. We really can't be going back. We need to be going forward really fast. I think it is imperative to have these conversations widely and discuss in larger communities what we can--shout out to my mom for a good question--what we can do in our homes and also what we can do to advocate on larger levels.
[MT] There are positive points to the subject. If we do the research, [we find] ways that we can become advocates.
[TA] Yes, I agree with all this. I think that as long as we can get more people in intellectual sciences, creative entrepreneurs, [people who fall] under the umbrella of cultural workers and artists to lead by example, we can help make these ideas accessible to the public. The exhibition that's coming up is important. I think it has the potential to empower people to think more critically about our life source, our water. This is not a polarizing issue at all. I think the discussion about healing and cleaning and continuing the ceremony around water is important, especially in a river city.
It doesn't take a whole lot to understand that there are some real problems with our water supply and how it's being treated. If we can take control and work on projects like this at the grassroots level, I feel that's more empowering for people.
[CA] One more lesson that I think is relevant to this question of reaching broad audiences: one thing I feel like we've learned over this process is that a very local and a very specific focus is not necessarily oppositional to broader coalition building. My practice for years felt like such a narrow solipsistic view, where I would go to the same city park and look at the same weeds for months and months and months. It felt important to me, but I worried that it didn't connect in any broader way. But I think we always find that, ike in Dawaune’s case, where even if you just go to the nearest river access point, that water is connected to you know a watershed spanning thousands of miles and thousands miles of other people's specific experiences, even bridging New York and my backyard weeds.
I found an artist out there, Ellie Irons, who designs experiments and community actions for these cosmopolitan weed species [I work with] that I found were also growing in New York. I think it's important to not be afraid of spending time with what's closest to you and what you can most readily access and spend the most time with and not be afraid that that won’t connect to other people.
[AJ] That's such an awesome point. All of those experiences are incredibly relevant. I think we've all become intimately familiar with our immediate environments over the past couple of months.
I really want to thank everybody for your comments, for sharing what you've been working on for the last couple of months. I also want to thank everyone for attending. I feel that we could keep talking, but I hope the conversation continues. I posted something in the chat about the exhibition’s web presence. Rynn's composition around water will be included online, you'll be able to see installation views, and, as I mentioned, you can visit the space in person. Peter, maybe I'll let you explain how Amplify is handling admission into that space. Thank you everyone so much. I think we have much more to talk about.
[PF] Thanks everybody for coming. Thanks for joining this discussion. We'll have more information posted about the exhibition on our website early next week. We're limiting attendance in the gallery to five people, or fewer, at a time. Masks are required and you can register through Eventbrite or our website for a specific time to visit after the show opens December 11th. We hope to see everybody there. We also hope everybody stays safe, stays well. Thank you again to our Working Group members for participating in this discussion tonight and thank you to Annika for moderating and thanks to all of you for joining us. We appreciate it and we'll see you all soon. Take care everyone.
*This transcript has been edited for clarity.
About the Panelists:
Corson Androski is a researcher, conservationist, software developer, and photographer/filmmaker from Hutchinson, Kansas. Their work uses the concept of care—as labor, affect, and ethic, given/received by humans and other-than-humans, individuals and systems—to consider subjects like institutional medicine alongside state ecological regulation, and beyond their respective margins, emergent communities of illness alongside informal conservation of the small, overlooked ecosystems of weeds and fungi that spring up in the seams of our patchwork flyover states.
Travis Apel was selected as a Work In Progress Fellow through Amplify Arts. He is an Outstanding 3D Artist nominee in 2018 and 2019 through Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards. Apel has focused his work through artist residencies at BarkerArt Hot Shops Art Center in, Kimmel Harding Nelson Arts Center in, El Museo Latino, and Mary Our Queen Catholic School. He was selected for a Friends of UNO Artslam+ presentation in 2015, and was honored through partnership with Mid-America Arts Alliance and formerly Omaha Creative Institute for a professional development fellowship in Artist INC Live Omaha in 2014. Apel is a 1994 Missouri Silver Scholarship recipient from Kansas City Art Institute. Apel has exhibited throughout the midwest and his work is represented in collections nationally.
Erin Foley earned her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005 and MFA from the University of Southern California in 2012. Foley taught art and design + build classes for Urban Gateways and Afterschool Matters in Chicago, adjunct instructed Critical Studies and Art History at USC and Iowa Western Community College, managed Michael Rakowitz’s studio (Chicago) and assisted Andrea Zittel (Joshua Tree). In 2019 Foley earned her BSBA with an emphasis in Accounting at the University of Nebraska Omaha where she currently adjuncts a Sculpture class. She guest lectures on tax and finances at Amplify Arts and is the Finance Manager at Film Streams in Omaha.
Dawaune Lamont Hayes is an inter-disciplinarian working at the intersections of performance, social design, sustainability, and journalism. Hayes is a trained dancer, working journalist, and visual artist focusing on long-term community impact. By challenging conventional spaces through nontraditional means, Hayes synthesizes supposed opposites into new forms and processes.
Rynn Kerkhove is an urban environmental planner with backgrounds in food systems, affordable housing, and community engagement. While getting her degrees in Global Resource Systems and Urban Planning at Iowa State, she was fortunate to have many opportunities to explore the complexities of urban environments. In 2016, she was the Gerhardt intern at 1000 Friends of Oregon, writing a report on Oregon’s food system. 2018 was a busy year: Rynn interned at Iowa State Extension’s Community Visioning Program to work with small Iowa communities to plan transportation improvements; spent time during the summer working in the Cuenca, Ecuador Planning Department to gain a different perspective on planning abroad; and cofounded the Ames Tenants Union to give renters and houseless people an organized voice in her college town. Rynn currently works in the City of Omaha Planning Department.
Alex O’Hanlon is a community leader who is committed to supporting resident-led projects that enhance their quality of life. She’s worked as a Garden Manager for City Sprouts South where she coordinated programs, workshops, and events. Currently she works as Engagement Coordinator at One Omaha. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy/History from UNO and travels to California every fall to harvest olives.
Sarah Rowe is a visual and performance artist in Omaha, Nebraska. Her work addresses issues of self-identity and exploitation of natural resources. She re-imagines traditional Native American symbology to fit the narrative of our modern cultural landscape. Her work opens meaningful cross cultural dialogues by utilizing methods of painting, casting, textiles, performance, and Native American rituals in unconventional ways. Rowe is of Lakota and Ponca descent. She cofounded Sweatshop Gallery and has exhibited her work nationally.
Angie Seykora creates installation, sculpture, drawing, and painting that repurpose industrial and found materials. Through process driven, almost mechanical methods of assembly, she emphasizes accumulation and tactile materiality to produce work that references the history of minimalism, bodily systems, and "thinking through making". She received an MFA in Sculpture from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. In 2018 Seykora was the recipient of an Unrestricted Artist Grant from Amplify Arts and in 2016, was recognized as a Distinguished Artist by the the Nebraska Arts Council through the award of an Individual Artist Fellowship. In 2013, she was presented with the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture award from the International Sculpture Center, where she was selected for the Art-St-Urban Sculpture Residency in St. Urban, Switzerland. Angie Seykora is an instructor of drawing and sculpture at Creighton University. Her work is exhibited and collected on a national and international level.
Molly Toberer earned her MFA from University of Minnesota, School of Art and Art History (2000) and her BFA with honors from University of Kansas College of Visual Art & Design (1994). Her professional visual art research includes advocating for visual artists in the international art fair market, conducting workshops as a visual artist-educator, garnering civic public-art projects, and acting in artist-curator roles for the Department of Cultural Affairs of Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports [LAWA]. Toberer currently lives and works in Omaha, Nebraska restarting her sculpture practice creating hand-made objects and mediating public spaces utilizing the metaphors of industrial and repurposed materials such as metal, plastic and light that speak to human empowerment and transformation against the forces of humanity’s accelerated impact on the earth.
About the Moderator:
Annika Johnson is Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Joslyn Art Museum where she is developing installations, programming, and research initiatives in collaboration with Indigenous communities. Her research and curatorial projects examine nineteenth-century Native American art and exchange with Euro-Americans, as well as contemporary artistic and activist engagements with the histories and ongoing processes of colonization. Annika received her PhD in art history from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019 and grew up in Minnesota, Dakota homelands called Mni Sota Makoce.