Fleuves en Communs Art Installation
A film and immersive installation for the conservation of the St. Lawrence River
ongoingFleuves en Communs: Building New Ecosocial Imaginaries Through Art for the Conservation of the Saint Lawrence River is a transdisciplinary project of photography, film, poetry and storytelling dedicated to the conservation of the St. Lawrence River. Created by the Terra Sapiens Collective in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape, it is co-led by artists Damian Siqueiros and Alyssa Martens.
The project is currently in its research and pre-production phases. The research phase documents and gives narrative form to testimonies gathered along the river, pairing scientists, fishers, seafarers and Indigenous knowledge holders with artists who translate these testimonies into stories, poems or dances. The pre-production phase seeks to build a gentle and lasting relationship among all collaborators, in a posture of relational art for impact, so that each artist has the time and conditions needed to bring their story to its full potential before the vignettes are filmed.
Fleuves en Communs will culminate in an immersive installation of about 40 minutes. Its final chapter will draw on a participatory foresight workshop bringing together artists, scientists and riverside communities, an approach designed to nurture a lasting dialogue between art and the conservation of the river.
The project draws on the Art for Impact Framework developed by Damian Siqueiros, a research-creation approach that mobilizes art to make imagination operative in the face of ecosocial challenges, combining arts-based methodologies, Western science, Indigenous relationalities and circular design. It brings together a network of scientific, cultural and Indigenous partners, including Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, the Indigenous Curatorial Collective and ECOMARIS, as well as the Stockholm Resilience Centre through the INSPIRI network, with researchers Laura Pereira and Ignacio Gianelli.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
