Hosted by the Queens Museum, Our Water, Ourselves is presented in conjunction with, Commonwealth: Water For All, an exhibition that was mounted earlier this year, featuring printed matter related to water preservation efforts including the NoDAPL movement. A panel discussion and risograph printmaking workshop, this event brings together key stakeholders in the local water protection movement for a conversation about local efforts to combat climate change, and in particular, resistance to pipeline construction in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Panelists will address questions such as: What kinds of efforts have been most successful thus far? What are the greatest challenges to this movement? How can a broader public become engaged?What is the significance of images to these efforts? What more can artists, culture workers, and institutions do?
The discussion will be followed by a printing workshop, where among other things, visitors will be able to take home a pamphlet documenting some of the important chords and conclusions of the day’s dialog and information about the participants. The pamphlet, designed by Greg Mihalko, is meant to become a tool for action, allowing visitors to take with them the consciousness-raising goals of the artists, activists, and organizers and distribute them in their local communities.
Organized with Josh MacPhee, co-founder of both Interference Archive and Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative Commonwealth: Water For All, is part of an ongoing series of exhibitions that features contemporary expressions about water, its utility, and its preservation and consumption in dialogue with the Museum’s long-term display of the Relief Map of New York City’s Water System, a sprawling WPA project commissioned for the 1939-40 World’s Fair. The model traces the system of aqueducts and tunnels that support the flow of water from the mountains of upstate New York to New York City.