Update: River Journey and Earth Systems Journey Presentation Video

Much of my work lately has been on "River Journey: Exploring the Value of the Mississippi River," a year long pilot of the Earth Systems Journey program of Full Spring Studio. There is a website for this project where I post updates, but since it is most of my art practice this year, I thought I'd put a recap of some of the milestones and media related to it here, as a way to share what I've been up to.

August 27, 2014 - River Journey launched, with an opening poem and river education activities. Then students from River's Edge Academy Charter High School started upstream of their 
sink to discover where their water comes from. Throughout the fall, they followed the water on its path from the Mississippi River, through lakes and infrastructure to their sink, and through pipes and the treatment plant, back to the Mississippi River.

November 19th, 2014 - River Journey included in poster presentation at U-Spatial Forum.  The poster, called "Mapping the Journey," described the role of maps in the Earth System Journey model, including in River Journey, which will include the use of GIS digital story maps.


January 15th, 2015 - River Journey included in River's Edge Academy Celebration of Learning, where students demonstrated the River Journey Story Map they created and the "Journey Bottles" they used for collecting water on their travels up and down stream from their sink.


February 18th, 2015 - River Journey included in a talk at Institute on the Environment, Big Questions series: "How can art and story heal the disconnect between modern humans and the environment."  Video here. This talk described the theory and goals of Earth Systems Journey, and shared case studies of River Journey as well as a prior pilot, Downstream/Upstream.

February 23, 2015 - River Journey and Journey Bottles art piece included in "Teaching Through Art" article by Allison Kronberg, in the Minnesota Daily.  This article describes the perspective of several artists, including myself, about the role of art in supporting environmental awareness and action.