Meandering

Description

A case study for community-oriented artistic research into the cultural, spiritual, and ecological trajectories of waterways.

Meandering is an artistic research program mobilized by TBA21–Academy in Spain, which fosters a deeper relationship with the ocean and other bodies of water by working as an incubator for collaborative inquiry, artistic production, and environmental advocacy. Inspired by how rivers bend and curve, connecting entire ecosystems, the program considers the cultural, spiritual, and ecological trajectories of waterways, from source to sea.

A two-year-long case study for regenerative practice, this book offers a practical and poetic toolset for understanding our interdependence with the watershed, tracing river systems through the sierras and forests in the south of Spain, to the heartlands of the Americas and the undersurface of the Mediterranean. Meandering develops critical-creative insights about the interconnectedness between land and freshwater, coastal, and ocean systems, endorsing a way of “thinking oceanically about more-than-ocean.” 

Featuring artistic commissions as well as essays, lyrics, critical-contemplative writing, meditations, scent, and visual documentation of the program’s convenings, the book proposes new routes for collaborative research and knowledge-production through participatory and community-oriented practices that highlight the potential contributions of contemporary art to today’s social and environmental crises. With the aim of investigating how artistic practice can build resources for expanded notions of ocean stewardship and climate responsibility, the publication also contributes to contemporary debates on justice in river governance and literacy on the transformation of freshwater ecosystems, as well as to the growing field of interfaith and interdisciplinary environmental studies, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Contributors
Edgar Calel, Carolina Caycedo, Federico Campagna, Emanuele Coccia, Amina Costa, Sally Fenaux Barleycorn, Francisco Gamero, Elizabeth Gallón Droste, Francisco Godoy Vega, Maria del Mar Griera Llonch, Cleo Wölfle Hazard, Brooke Holmes, Lafawndah, Sofia Lemos, Isabel Lewis, Gracia López Anguita, Juan Lopéz Intzín, Gabrielle Mangieri, Michael Marder, Ana María Millán, Eduardo Navarro, Cristina Aguilar Porro, Brian W. Rogers, Lorenzo Sandoval, Colin Self, Emilija Škarnulyt, Chaveli Sifre, Medina Tenour Whiteman, Rosa Tharrats, Caique Tizzi and Silvia WynterSofia Lemos is a curator and writer. Between 2021–2023, she was Curator at TBA21–Academy, where she led the communities-oriented art and ecology research program Meandering. From 2018–2021, she was Curator of Public Programmes and Research at Nottingham Contemporary and was Associate Editor at The Contemporary Journal. Lemos was Associate Curator of Public Programmes to the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art—RIBOCA (2020), with previous curatorial and research roles at Contour biennale 8, HKW, Berlin, PRAXES, Berlin, DRAF, London, and MACBA, Barcelona. Her writing has appeared in Art-Agenda, Frieze, Mousse, and numerous exhibition catalogues and artist monographs.IT

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