ech.o locations
A New Art Project
water and its relationship with life
An Eco-Art Project:
In continuing with the central concerns conducted in my previous artistic production, Invisible Suffering, my second art project Ech.o Locations takes water as its subject. With a play on words, Ech.o Locations tunes in on the technique of ECHOlocation to identify certain spaces in our immediate environment where water sources are affected. These specific ECO-locations make visible the toxic ecosystems surrounding water to ultimately raise the alarm in our aqueous bodies. Ultimately, this project is a study on the ecologies of coasts, with its central research question being: “what are the relationships between the contact zones of water, land, and its inhabitants (human and non-human)?”
INSPIRATION
Josephine Mandamin, an Anishinaabe grandmother, elder, key figure in the water protectors movement, and a Wikwemikong First Nation citizen, cofounded the Mother Earth Water Walkers. Mandamin passed away in 2019, not before traveling 25,000 miles carrying a bucket of water around the shorelines of all the Great Lakes and other waterways in North America during the course of her 77 years to raise awareness of the need to keep the waters clean and free from pollution. Ech.o Locations starts here, on the second largest lakes of the Great Lakes: Lake Michigan. It seemed only appropriate to start in my hometown of Milwaukee, WI, understanding how Josephine Mandamin walked the very shores I grew up on.
“Water has to live, it can hear, it can sense what we’re saying, it can really, really, speak to us. Some songs come to us through the water. We have to understand that water is very precious.”
As Rob Nixon states in his seminal book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, “Violence, above all environmental violence, needs to be seen—and deeply considered—as a contest not only over space, or bodies, or labor, or resources, but also over time.” Beyond being seen, violence is felt throughout sensory systems. Therefore, Ech.o Locations is particularly focused on sound and visual manifestations of several coast lines. Part of a larger series called EcoMaterialities, this project incorporates field work to bridge research with art to ultimately present an immersive sensory experience and continue to center the concerns over our planet. In addition, Ech.o Locations is an ecofeminist project that seeks to bridge the connection between women and water.
door county, wi
The Niagara Escarpment is a vast limestone escarpment that stretches from Lake Winnebago in east-central Wisconsin through Ontario, Canada, and ultimately descends to Niagara Falls in New York. The same granite formation that extends through Door County includes the iconic precipice which the Niagara River plunges. The existence of the escarpment is clearly evident in the region's limestone cliffs, bluffs, lakeside cave systems, and exposed bedrock that were formed as glaciers flowed across Wisconsin millions of years ago.
Note: Much of the green seen in these images, without much color grading, are due to the phytoplankton that has increased over the years. Read the recent Smithsonian Magazine article on this issue.
manitowoc, wi
sheboygan, wI
menominee river
niagara, wI
milwaukee, wi
What’s in the name?
From the Anishinaabemowin, Minowakiing / Minoakking, meaning “good earth / good land”, Milwaukee is the largest county in Wisconsin. For the Potawatomi, Mahn-a-wauk, is known as “council ground,” and for the Meskwaki, Mahu-a-waukee means “gathering place.”
The confluence of the three rivers (Milwaukee, Menominee, and Kinnickinnic), an abundance of natural resources, and the diversity of tribes made Milwaukee an attractive trading port for natives. As the French arrived, it also became a fur trading post.
Read the section “Great Lakes Anishinaabe Place Names” by Dr. Margaret Noodin and James Langdon in the 2022 Wisconsin Great Lakes Chronicle