Description

Rivers Institute (RI) plans a project that will foreground the overlapping histories of indigenous communities and climate change vulnerability. The project associates histories of liberation and resistance with liminal places—including the Gulf region marshlands that have been home and refuge for Indigenous peoples and the formerly enslaved and their descendants. RI will engage artists and communities to explore the relationship between land loss and climate change at the border of land and water, and in the margins of books and histories. The project begins with the creation of two artist books, by Kuwaiti/ Puerto Rican artist Alia Farid and African American artist Allison Janae Hamilton. It culminates in “The Rivers Confluence’” a year-long series of discussions, performances, readings, digital publications, and gatherings aimed at building community around Black and indigenous leadership, knowledge, and kinship in New Orleans. The work will continue through the re-granting of resources to participating organizations and communities.