Talking Water
Talking Water is an offering by Walking Water ...
Walking Water, born from a vision received in Payahuunadü - "the place where the water flows" on the ancestral homelands of the Paiute-Shoshone people - is a project and a prayer that centers water as teacher, guide, and sacred source.
We began as a three-year pilgrimage along the natural and human-made waterways between Mono Lake and Los Angeles, CA, partnering with local and global communities to collectively bear witness to the situation of water in our world. Following the path of water from source to end-user, we witnessed histories and current realities of destruction, violence, harm and extraction. Alongside the stories of grief, we celebrated those of beauty and resilience - possibilities for the healing and regeneration of waters, landscapes, and communities.
We continue to listen to the guidance and orientation of water, for how Walking Water might serve as one tributary within a global and intergenerational movement to restore relations with waters, lands and peoples. We move with the question: what world is possible if human beings devote themselves - personally, politically, spiritually - to that which gives life? We understand how essential it is for us to recognize and honor the leadership of Indigenous peoples and communities of color who have been protecting the waters and the lands from extraction and exploitation for hundreds of years -whose life ways, languages and cultures offer profound teachings for how to grow into right relationship.
A commitment to healing waters asks each of us to find our role in movements that struggle to dismantle oppressive systems that commodify waters, lands and peoples in pursuit of power and profit. And as we carry the dream of justice for waters and peoples alike, we strive to uplift and support those individuals and communities who are "acupuncture points" of healing and possibility, actively living towards that more beautiful and liberated world.
For more info go to: https://walking-water.org
To support the work of Walking Water go to: https://walking-water.org/donate/
Walking Water is a fiscally sponsored project of Weaving Earth
Banner photo by Teena Pugliese
Talking Water
with Melissa McGill, Kate Morales & Debra Scacco
“As an artist, a huge pivot point for me in this work has been to understand that what I once thought of as materials, as object, as resource, are actually collaborators, are actually relations.” –Kate Morales
In this conversation, we welcome three artists who are deeply immersed in their relationships with water. The weaving and flowing conversation follows how each artist, in their own ways, is guided by water and maps water with their work. Along the way, we uncover their personal journeys of centering water in their artistic practices and how those journeys are transformed and translated into artistic work.
Melissa McGill is an artist, activist, and water storyteller who has been featured on Talking Water in the past. Melissa is known for creating immersive public works with water at the center and working with communities to create projects that not only make an impact, but send out long-lasting ripples in the communities they serve. Melissa talks about her intimate and reciprocal relationship with the Po River, Italy’s longest river, and her recent work with historical maps of the Po River incorporating natural elements. Learn more about Melissa's work at https://www.melissamcgillartist.com/.
Kate Morales’ artist practice focuses on somatic scribing, which uses image, story, and intuition to map layers of meaning in conversations in service of decolonial healing. Kate is working with Walking Water on a forthcoming book Waters Becoming, offering narratives inspired by the conversations on Water Learning Series: Los Angeles. The book will bring art and words together locating relationships with water. Kate talks about uncovering contexts in conversations through their work, and shares a growing relationship guided by the waters of the LA River and Payahuunadü. Learn more about Kate’s work at https://www.asthecrowfliesdesign.com/.
Debra Scacco, who resides in Los Angeles, is a research-based artist and curator. She shares an artistic practice guided and informed by an exploration of the LA River and tributaries. Her work with lines and maps traverses the intimate and public worlds where urban waters flow and move--seen and unseen. She shares an awareness of the hierarchies and infrastructures that control water with an eye towards illuminating and liberating those structures with her work. Learn more about Debra’s work at https://www.debrascacco.com/.
Hosted by: Kate Bunney
Produced & edited by: Anne Carol Mitchell
Intro music by: Mamuse 'River Run Free' - featuring Walter Strauss
To support Waters Becoming, visit: https://walking-water.org/waters-becoming/.
If you feel inspired by Talking Water please consider a donation - our work relies on the community. You can donate here. https://walking-water.org/donate/
For more info go to Walking Water website. https://walking-water.org/
