thank you Brian! this is a powerful nutrient! On Thu, Aug 18, 2022 at 9:02 PM Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> At night on the Parana, the stars still shine. The boatman cuts the motor; > we drift silently under the light of a full moon. This is the end of a four > thousand kilometer-long river, it's the "Delta front." The low islands to > the east extend fingers of land into the Rio del Plata estuary, and those > forested fingers grow about 70 meters longer every year, catching the last > of the sediments carried from the Andes and the Brazilian jungle. To the > southwest, the lights of Buenos Aires glitter on the horizon. Someday in > the future - quite soon, in geological time - the Delta front will reach > the city. Every month it's six meters closer. The mutability of this > territory makes my head spin. The stars, the moon, the lights, the islands > and the uncanny mirror of the river all come together like a wheel spinning > weightlessly in infinite space, or maybe it's a whirlpool, a cosmic gyre. A > homegrown joint makes its way from hand to hand, through the calm of a > winter night that is windless by good luck, and warm by devastating climate > change. The journey is well underway. > > With Alejandro Meitin of Casa Rio we're making tactical media in the > wetlands, along a meandering path that leads from Punta Lara, south of > Buenos Aires, all the way north through the Pampa and the arid reaches of > the Grand Chaco to Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. I wrote the paragraph > above a week ago; now we're at the halfway point. Our aim is to reach out > to riverside communities and build ecological awareness, while also helping > to accelerate the process of information-sharing among a network of > ecological NGOs called "Humedales sin fronteras" or Wetlands Without > Borders, whose member organizations are located in Argentina, Paraguay, > Bolivia and Brazil. My contribution as an artist-cartographer is an online > map and multimedia platform that can display text, scientific information, > photography, video, audio and social networks (it's FLOSS, built by Majk > Shkurti to my specs, see info below). The color scheme and iconography of > the map has been designed by Dani Lorenzo of Casa Rio, and most of the > videos you'll find inside were done by Andres Irigoyen. Lots of others are > involved, it would be long to list every one of them. As for Alejandro > Meitin, he's an artist, lawyer, environmental activist and > jack-of-all-trades who's been doing this kind of thing for thirty years, > first with the artists' group Ala Plastica, and now with the broader > community-based constellation of Casa Rio. We've taken similar journeys > before, stretching back to 2014 when Critical Art Ensemble generously > invited me to come along to Argentina for a roving seminar organized by Ala > Plastica under the name "Watersheds as Laboratories of Governance." In 2019 > we brought an exhibition called "The Earth Will Not Abide" from Chicago to > the riverport city of Rosario, and Casa Rio published quite a beautiful > book with that material. Now we're in full-on activist mode, meeting > network members all along the river, pushing for a Wetlands Law in > Argentina, for a halt to dredging, sand extraction and dam-building, and > for the development, from below, of what we are calling "Biocultural > Corridors." > > The notion of bioculturalism is grasped intuitively by all the people we > meet: It refers to the changes in orientation and behavior that arise when > human beings begin to see and feel themselves as participants in a web of > ecological relations, such that "an injury to one is an injury to all" - > whether it's insect, plant, animal or homo sapiens. The corridor part is > somewhat trickier. Many are aware of biological corridors, which are > designed by conservation specialists as safe passageways between small > islands of habitat which, on their own, are insufficient to sustain bird > and animal populations that range widely across the changing seasons. > Biocultural corridors, however, are not planned or instituted by experts. > They arise in areas where groups of people who might be engaged in > agroecological farming, traditional crafts such as willow weaving, > small-scale fishing, land defence and indigenous lifeways all come together > in mutual recognition and support, building the consciousness of what might > someday become truly sustainable productive practices. Like the > Bioregionalists of North America in the 1970s, we are inviting communities > to use our map in order to draw and describe the components of their own > biocultural corridors, which someday, we hope, will extend all the way up > and down the great uninterrupted fluvial corridor reaching from the > headwaters of the Brazilian and Bolivian Pantanal down to the Rio del Plata > estuary. For once, we're not necessarily kidding ourselves. Ideas based on > grassroots solidarity spread rapidly in Latin America. All along the vast > Parana Delta in Argentina you can see walls painted with the slogan "Pass > the Wetlands Law already!" (It's a bit more terse in Spanish: "Ley de > Humedales Ya!"). We are also promoting the idea of biocultural festivals, > where people can share and celebrate the changes that they are making right > now, in their own environments with their own hands. The fact is, many of > the people we meet are already doing something similar under other names, > so this transformation is definitely happening. > > The reception of the mapping project is overwhelmingly positive. There may > be a bit of initial suspicion and resistance toward a Yanqui with a magic > box, but Alejandro speaks very convincingly and people get it: This is > sophisticated technology that can be seized by grassroots groups and used > in political struggles as well as popular education processes, in the face > of complex problems where all the legitimate expertise is typically on the > other side. The editing tools developed by Majk Shkurti make it possible to > place points and draw lines or polygons with ease, and then fill out a data > template that yields structured text and audiovisual content - stuff that > young people can learn in an afternoon. It's GIS on the easy and the cheap, > it can transmit knowledge and enthusiasm, and it can be put to political > work when it's time to stand up against municipal councils, provincial > governments and national legislatures. The idea this time is not just to > get spontaneous contributions from individuals - because we've already done > that in an earlier mapping project that's still being filled out, mainly > with denunciations of abuse. Instead, before they start drawing on the map, > we are asking existing community groups to engage in some collective > reflection about Casa Rio's three basic questions: Who designs the > territory? For whom is it designed? And what would a collaborative design > of territories look like? This is how the "laboratory of governance" idea > becomes a full-fledged social experiment. > > Just two days ago I met an old fisherman who in the early 1990s had played > a decisive role in stopping a US-backed dam project, with no resources > except a good friend, a canoe and a pile of photocopied flyers. A regional > hero, exactly my kind of hero. He, too, seemed a little suspicious at > first. As a media maker I was profoundly moved when he later came up to me > and told me how vital our work would be to the educational project and > wetlands observatory that he's now coordinating with a local social > movement. What they've already done is to convince the city (it's actually > called Parana city) to pay for a bunch of wood, and then in three months > time the movement built a dock on a small island, a welcome center and an > elevated boardwalk about half a kilometer long through the swamp, where > they bring boatloads of schoolkids who live right next to the river and > have no contact with the water or the islands. Next they want to put their > interpretation center in the middle of a huge wetland on the city's edge, > which without a watchful eye is likely to be taken over illegally by gated > communities, factories or other profitable enterprises. You can imagine > they have a different interpretation of what this land is good for! These > are people who know their environment through generations of intimate > experience - and today that's something many others want to learn. With any > luck, we're about to discover a whole lot of local knowledge taking form > inside our magic box, and being shared along the entire wetlands corridor. > > Today's environmental conditions are helping with this good reception - > unfortunately. In the context of a three-year drought and the arrival of > increasingly large herds of cattle, the traditional islander practice of > burning dry winter brush to stimulate the growth of fresh spring grass has > morphed into an emergency situation of uncontrolled fires in the Delta, > choking populations in urban centers with heavy smoke and even causing > freeway pileups due to loss of visibility. For two years in a row, while > lockdowns and pandemic anxiety reigned, a plunge in water levels revealed > vast sandy deserts where the Parana once flowed, causing many to fear that > the river would never come back again (thankfully it did this year). Sure, > it's always hard to attribute local phenomena to climate change - but the > best Brazilian science says that the atmospheric rivers arising from the > evapotranspiration of the Amazon jungle (aka flying rivers, "rios > voladores") are now drying up due to massive deforestation, leading to a > loss of rainfall at the headwaters of the Parana, way up there in the (for > me) mythical Pantanal wetlands. At the same time, it's well known by > everyone in the region that over a mere thirty years, industrial > monocropping (aka GMO soybeans doused in Round-Up) has devastated the > ecology of South America at continental scale, ruining entire drainages, > pushing cattle from bulldozed pastures into the wetlands, and provoking all > the above-mentioned disasters, at least as far as we can tell - with a big > push from rising CO2 levels, for sure. Now, horror of all horrors, the > government of Paraguay is calling on the US Army Corps of Engineers for > "help" in managing the Paraguay river, which is the major tributary of the > Parana, directly connected to the Pantanal headwaters. In case you don't > know, the Army Corps are the folks who destroyed the ecology of the > Mississippi river system with a straightjacket of dams and levees. Along > with the oil industry, the Corps is responsible for most of the land-loss > crisis in Louisiana - not to mention what happened to the Columbia River, > etc. Common people don't need the kind of "help" such agencies bring. > > To increase awareness and spread more precise knowledge of all these > converging dangers, we have given our map of biological corridors a dark > side, which is a topology of the extractive corridors that are threatening > the Paraguay-Parana watershed. Here, instead of lush organic green > traversed by mud-brown water, what you see is a dessicated cinder, like the > leftover coals of some immense and gruesome barbecue - the frightful, yet > increasingly predictable and literal culmination of the centuries-old > colonial process. We focus on the heavily dredged Hidrovia, or Water > Highway, which is what the transnational capitalist groups see when they > look at the Paraguay-Parana River. IIRSA, which is the South American > banking complex behind the design of the Hidrovia, has for decades wanted > to extend their favorite transnational canal all the way to Amazonas and > beyond. What Eduardo Galleano called the "Open Veins of Latin America" are > in fact the waterways, which the European colonists used to carry away the > treasures of the continent, resulting in the denomination of the Parana > watershed as the "Plate Basin" or Silver Basin - the Moneyshed, you might > as well say. Well, the only thing that has changed is that the major cargo > is now GMO soybeans, and the chief destination of the ships is China, > followed closely by the EU of course. What Marx once called the "metabolic > rift" between the city and the country has now opened up between South > America and Eurasia. It's a process of alienation in every sense of the > word, at the largest possible scale. There is a tremendous amount to be > learned about all this, and we are currently multiplying our research > collaborations into the global political economy of extractivism, while > also engaging discussions about how to bring the many specialized reports > authored by members of Wetlands Without Borders onto our more popular and > intuitive map of extractive corridors. The whole project is a work in > progress with lots of gaps and question marks, but it's live on the net > right now, and I expect it to remain under active development for the next > couple years. > > Life does not happen elsewhere, in some ideal garden to which you could > escape on vacation. Life happens right here and now, in a double world with > an inhuman and more-than-human face. I have always felt most alive amid the > struggles of this double world, in collaboration with all kinds of people, > of all races and classes and stations and professions, whenever and > wherever they are finding their own ways of resisting alienation and > contributing to a better life - some soft and affective, some local and > productive, some political and confrontational, or even better, political > and constructive. We live in a time when the so-called middle classes are > finally realizing that their seemingly higher station - their literally > higher ground, in river terms - will not protect them. The storms, floods, > droughts and fires of global ecological change are coming for them, or > rather, for *us*, as I'd put it from my own middle-class position. The big > question is this: Do the middle classes - including industrial workers > attached to states and large corporations - go fascist under the pressure > of rising threats to their old lifestyles and identities, or can we find > shareable biocultural pathways toward reparative socio-ecological worlds, > and through collaboration with other classes and cultures and races, create > neo-ecosystems that can ramp down the causes and mitigate the effects of > climate change? Please don't explain to me that such a swerve away from > ruling norms is impossible, due to human nature or economic law or > historical destiny or some other bullshit, because such self-serving > explanations have long been part of the problem. For a metamorphosis to > occur, everyone has to bring their own skills and dreams into play somehow > - preferably right now, because tomorrow is always a little hotter. > > Therefore my dear friends, here I am in South America with some good old > tactical media. > > All the best from https://tinyurl.com/jaaukanigas - > > Brian > > *** > > Corridors Map: https://map.casariolab.art > > Casa Rio: https://casariolab.art > > Humedales sin fronteras: https://humedalessinfronteras.org > > Project repo: https://github.com/crystalball-mapkit/crystalball > > Installation guide: > https://wiki.timetochange.today/home/installation/terminal-commands > > The Earth Will Not Abide: https://www.regionalrelationships.org/tewna > > (Feel free to contact me if you want some tips about deployment and use of > the software) > > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "DeepTimeChicago" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to deeptimechicago+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/deeptimechicago/CANuiTgwV0cWFb%2B2yOS-%2B0KvovwKdR3y1%3Dz4e8qzpEYtnpgnPDA%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/deeptimechicago/CANuiTgwV0cWFb%2B2yOS-%2B0KvovwKdR3y1%3Dz4e8qzpEYtnpgnPDA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Claire Pentecost (she, her) Professor, Department of Photography The School of the Art Institute of Chicago www.clairepentecost.org www.deeptimechicago.org I acknowledge and honor the original peoples of the Chicagoland area – the Three Fires Confederacy, Potawatomi, Odawa and Ojibwe Nations, as well as other Tribal Nations that know this area as their ancestral homeland, including the Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Miami, Peoria, and Sac and Fox.
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