Projects: River of Words Stream of Conscience
Photo: Steve Hooper
Designed to evoke the look and inspiration of a powerful river, this installation asks its participants: If the earth speaks through water, from placid pools to raging floods, what do words have in common with water?
Photo: Christine Destrempes
Photo: Steve Hooper
Photo: Steve Hooper
Photo: Christine Destrempes
That question taps the imagination of participants, young and old. Everyone has something to say about water. On its surface, this colorful and powerful installation combines the visual arts and literary arts, but it also invites all forms of artistic expression. In one gathering after another, hundreds of participants offer their thoughts by writing messages, odes, prayers and pleas on fragments of paper that join together to form a giant river of ideas and reflections on water.
River of Words Stream of Conscience opened in March 2011 at the Sharon Arts Center Gallery in Peterborough, NH. The installation includes dual video presentations and a display of 57 monotypes by Christine Destrempes. The run of the exhibition coincides with World Water Day and includes an evening of literary and performance art, lectures, a teach-in for educators, an event for artists and documentary screenings at local theatre.
River of Words Stream of Conscience calls attention to effects of climate change, water diversion and reallocation, pollution, watershed destruction, waste and the water bottling industry. The goal of the installation is to inform participants and visitors of water’s uncertain future, and to consider their joys and fears, their gratitude and actions in seeing their relationship with water as intimate and personal. Once we understand how deeply we care about water, we are moved to take better care of it.