Connecting dots between "Blued Trees," the Newton Creek superfund site and parts unknown

Last Friday evening I got two pieces of seemingly unrelated information. The good news was that I have been offered and accepted an ISCP/NEA residency, beginning on October 1st until December 31, 2015, to work on the Newton Creek problem. The Newton Creek problem is that it is a superfund site in New York.

Within hours of that news, I also learned that the Spectra natural gas pipeline corporations, in charge of the Algonquin expansion that would pass near the Indian Point facility, also in New York, the site of the Blued Trees overture launch has moved a month earlier than we expected to condemn the land and take it from private landowners by eminent domain. That news has accelerated pressure to expedite the legal process that would protect Blued Trees, the land it's on, and the community it's in with the fund raising through Rockethub that would support that process. The news came as I was also preparing to leave for the UK, for the Society for Ecological Conference, in Manchester, where I will be presenting about trigger point theory and launching the Blued Trees film in the Whitworth Gallery, at the University of Manchester.

Back in 1997, when I first daylighted the Ghost Nets site to restore the estuarine system, I took a shot of the moment when fresh water passed through the highest known storm surge line, indicated with granite chips left over from the granite industry that had buried the former wetland rocky intertidal patch, and met salt water for the first time in about 100 years. I called that shot, "Connecting the Dots."

"Connecting the Dots" 1997

Friday night, I began connecting a much larger set of dots, between the thinking that creates a superfund site, the site of a possible even greater ecological disaster, between natural gas and a nuclear facility with a history of problems, on the banks of the Hudson River, miles from several major East coast cities, and the people I look forward to meeting in Manchester. Each of these sites, are locations I would identify as trigger points: places where a small area could impact entire bioregions. Connecting these dots of trigger points will lead to parts unknown: parts where we will all rescue the earth from ourselves, or witness a great loss for all life.

Twenty-one days to Memphis- how are the Magnolia blossoms doing?

The resilience of Magnolia blossoms has been undeterred by the vagaries of climate change in New York City.

I'm doing Fish Story in Memphis because I believe we can identify at least one point in that location, whose restoration can affect the entire bioregion. Fish are the key to those locations. Where they thrive, there is hope for the region. Where they falter, all the challenges of the anthropocene loom. Perhaps, where the Wolf River once met the Mississippi River we will find one of those critical points. Memphis is in an important bioregion. It includes the third largest watershed in the world, the largest in North America. The mississippi is the sixth largest river in the world. Both, and the fish that live there, are  endangered by global warming, factory farm pollution, dredging, tributary diversions and the destruction of edging habitat long waterways.

The premise of trigger point theory (my dissertation topic), is that it is possible to identify small points of blockage, like acupuncture points on a human body, where activating that blockage can yield to energetic flow. My goal in Memphis next month is to identify those points.

There are twenty one days till Fish Story begins in Memphis. A Rockethub crowd funding campaign was launched last week to support this work. I am working on a press release. I am exhausted, excited, worried and optimistic. I am exhausted by the preparations, excited about the potential, worried about everything that could go wrong and optimistic about what lies ahead: the people, the opportunities, the learning.

The Fish Story team is remarkable, particularly the two scientists I work with. Dr. James White, paleoecologist and Dr. Eugene Turner, a wetlands biologist.

White was among the first scientists sounding alarms on global warming and writing on the effects of vegetation to remediate climate change. Turner is a Gulf of Mexico dead zone expert who has been working on the effects of the BP spill. 

Fish Story is an investigative experiment couched in an endurance performance.
May 4, Dr. Turner and I will canoe the pristine Ghost River, headlands of the Wolf River, a former tributary of the Mississippi River, with the Wolf River Conservancy. We will be photographing fish habitat along the way.

May 7, we will gather at Crosstown Arts (see April 11 Post) with high school students. Our goal will be to create some maps of relationships between what is known and what is felt about connections between the waterways that fish depend upon. I will explain the ideas.  We will play the Anthropocene Game (see January 23 Post). I ask people to sit, relax, close their eyes and let me sing to them, acapela in French, Faure's "Au Bord de L'Eau." Then we will make maps of what we know about fish in Memphis.

May 7-10, I will install work from those experiences at the Memphis College of Art.

May 11, we will project a webcast in the installation room at the College, to compare different parts of the country and possibly the world and the issues they are facing about climate change, animal habitat, particularly for fish and the implications for humans.

A month ago, I began training for these events. I have continued to move ahead with my dissertation writing, clarifying the ideas I will bring to the table there. I have stepped up my singing lessons and my voice is in better shape. Today I recorded the Faure song for the event at Crosstown Arts, even tho I plan to sing live. I have been going to the gym to build my strength and stamina. Several times I've collapsed from the effort and half way thru, hurt my foot by inflaming osetoarthritis. I just can't whip myself into shape the way I might have even twenty years ago. I soldier on and get stronger. I have always considered my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS see January 12 and March 1 Posts) to be a useful metaphor for the issues the planet faces under the duress of the Anthropocene. That is, if we can't continue to function as a healthy systems so we must discover how an unhealthy system builds resilience despite continued stressors, and thrive.

A recent article on the resilience of collapsing systems, indicated that the rate of recovery for fragile systems can be enhanced by proximity to healthier systems. In other words, if one system fails, be sure to reinforce a neighbor. So in Memphis, we will start with the healthiest section, the Ghost River. In New York City, the days when I can't rain or even sing, I think. When my reserves build back up, I venture out, nourish myself with the exquisite spring unfurling of magnolia blossoms and resume the training that will prepare me for the lessons Memphis has to teach us.

Senselessly, in the face of so much to be healed, came news of the bombings in Boston at the marathon finish line.
But no matter what, the promise of spring is that hope cannot be denied.

Fish Story live campaign of Rockethub!

Fish Story is now a tax deductible campaign on Rockethub and the first funding is coming in!!

This culminates years of thinking and planning on the Gulf to Gulf webcasts to get us to the point where we can invite the public into a process of doing something about climate change. Now, as the donations pile up to take the ideas into the next phase of concrete reality, it all feels magical and full of the air of promise.

Change can start now and will gather momentum in Memphis next month. Dear Readers, please tell your friends and colleagues about this project. You can make an immense difference. Speaking for my team, I am very, very humbly and profoundly grateful.

Counting down to Fish Story

In a matter of minutes, I expect to get a video trailer from Kathleen Sweeney. It will be the heart of our Fish Story crowd funding re-launch campaign tomorrow on Rockethub. Meanwhile, I want to put in a plug for my colleagues' Yvonne Senouf & Corinne Weber's Project.Nero launch. I am hoping they may also guest appear May 11 in the webcast event that will close Fish Story, Memphis 2013. I find it immensely inspiring, exciting and hopeful that so many artists are working on river issues now because I think they may be a key to resilience in these times of climate change.

In 27 days, I will be back in Memphis, ready to begin the series of events that will comprise Fish Story. May 4, Dr. Eugene Turner and I will canoe the Wolf River to the Ghost River wetlands, headlands to the Wolf, documenting fish habitat. We will be joining a group from the Wolf River Conservancy.  

A little earlier today, I sent Emily Halpern, at Crosstown Arts Gallery, a description of what we will accomplish May 6 in the gallery, with young people. I will post that here ASAP. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow, my work will be in the AC Institute One of a Kind IV show, curated by Heide Hatry. The Oil & Water artists book I am exhibiting plays on a single image, taken in 2008, before the BP spill but after Katrina. It was the impact of thinking about and seeing New Orleans after these events, that began the journey that will take me to Memphis next month.

Page 3 of 12 pages of Oil & Water unique artists book, encaustic on digitized print on Hosho paper  in plexiglass box. Aviva Rahmani 2013

Old rules, new ideas to connect the dots from Maine to Sandy to Memphis

Old rules, new ideas

1.     Do no harm

2.     Fix what’s broken

3.     Make wise choices

I'm proud to be part of the solution on Friday, at this year's NES 12th Annual Colloquium "Superstorm Sandy: Before, During and After" http://opencuny.org/nature/ at CUNY.

I will present the culmination of 2 years of GIS research on how to support finfish in the Gulf of Maine. This is an exciting opportunity to discuss with others how to contribute to future policy solutions. The work offers a means to apply the principles of trigger point theory to target where we might focus restoration work to support dwindling biodiversity. This project demonstrates how to leverage small efforts to address systemic impacts before and after the effects of climate change.

Old rules, new ideas.

The research I will present is some of the raw material for Fish Story.

Fish Story launching on Rockethub

I have made the decision to set aside work on my dissertation so I can focus entirely on producing Fish Story for May. I'm diving in with both feet and beginning my launch with Rockethub to start raising some serious financial support. This is the project description that will go on line in 24 hours:

Fish Story is a May 2013 participatory public art project about water and habitat for Memphis, TN. 

  Fish Story is about how the lives of fish in the Mississippi River reflect global environmental challenges. It is planned by artist Aviva Rahmani for May 2013, Memphis, TN, as part of the city-wide Memphis Social, apexart franchise exhibition curated and organized by Beautiful Fields. Fish Story is based on four years of art/ science research with Gulf to Gulf, a series of webcasts about global warming. The project is designed as a model for artists, scientists, conservationists and activists to work together on ecosystem problems. Fish Story will unfold in 4 stages: 1. Traversing river tributaries, 2. Mapping knowledge at Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN., 3. Interpretive installation at Memphis College of Art, 4. Webcast public discussion about implications of what was learned and national options: May 11, 2011.