Drawn Together
In designing and operating large-scale infrastructures, humans tend toward fixity—despite increasingly dynamic conditions, such as those at play in the Mississippi River Delta context. The Anthropocene River Campus seminar “Un/bounded Engineering and Evolutionary Stability” sought to explore the multi-scalar effects of such human interventions, and how new futures might be imagined that engage and work with these dynamics. To do so, the seminar employed the practice of drawing as its core method (...)
After Extraction
This field guide combines creative non-fiction and images to depict a partial history of extractive land use in Central Illinois, and is accompanied by a set of exercises, questions, and prompts that act as a tool for learning about the lands where you are. Both texts are complemented by artist Ryan Griffis’ video work on the destruction of wetlands during colonial expansion. (...)
Edible Encounters
Edible Encounters gave us an opportunity to observe the contrast between the wild bursts of biodiversity in the marginal areas along the river and the widespread control of nature exemplified by the endless cornfields in this region. These series of edible encounters and territorial mash-ups offered interpretations of foods that have bioregional origins or are part of long-standing Indigenous traditions or both. It was an opportunity to look to Indigenous knowledge, tradition, and creativity to (...)