November 14, 2024
How to eat a river?
When we eat, we are always eating landscapes. Water and chemicals flow into food, then into the microbes dining in our intestines, connecting us metabolically to ecosystems where food production takes place. This talk will reflect on food as a medium to cultivate awareness of hydrosocial interdependence and stimulate more equitable modes of coexistence, care, and multispecies community. I will focus on our project Piquete del Río Bogotá, a communal lunch organized as the entre—ríos collective in 2023 that gathered river caretakers at the iconic Tequendama Falls to share a meal of organic produce grown in one of Colombia's most polluted watersheds. I'll consider how commensality might galvanize coalitionary energies in water stressed territories by connecting members of Indigenous Mhuysca councils, ecological restoration projects, organic food production, nature tourism, environmental education and heritage initiatives. Sharing inspiring stories of these river guardians' everyday practices of care, conservation and food sovereignty, the talk also uplifts their work as part of the hydrocommons cultures emerging throughout the Americas to transform ways of relating to and through water.
Lisa Blackmore is a researcher, curator and educator, working with art and water cultures in Latin America. Since 2018, she has been directing entre—ríos, a platform whose collaborative methodologies (re)connect diverse communities to bodies of water through curatorial, editorial and pedagogical projects. She is a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley and Senior Lecturer in Art History and Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Essex, UK. In 2023, she was a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow for her project Imagining the Hydrocommons: Art, Water and Infrastructure in Latin America. Her recent publications include "Water" in Handbook to Latin American Environmental Aesthetics (2023) and the co-edited volume Hydrocommons Cultures: Art, Pedagogy and Care Practices in the Americas (2024). entre-rios.net / lisablackmore.net
Natalia Brizuela is the Chair of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Professor in the Departments of Film & Media and Spanish & Portuguese at UC Berkeley. Her work focuses on photography, film and contemporary art, critical theory, and aesthetics of both Spanish America and Brazil.
Images from entre-ríos, courtesy of Lisa Blackmore.
