An Unknown River

I got married. The marriage did not last long. It left me questioning the notion of gender, the role I play as a woman, and the traces I leave on the land...

An Unknown River

I got married.

Afterwards we drove from LA to Boston following the Colorado River. I, like many before, was engulfed in the rivers waters. The scale, the force, the changing landscapes that the river cut through. The female personification of a natural, moving, force.

The marriage did not last long and fell apart with the same velocity force and speed with which it had come together.

It left me questioning.

Questioning the notion of gender in our society, the comparisons of strength played out through physical form and the role of gender within the wild spaces I choose to roam. 

The role I play as a woman, and the traces I leave on the land, had never been a primary consideration in the work I make, it is something I am drawn to, a compulsion, repeated again and again and again.

When the world locked down so did my ability to roam. From the small, caged parameter of my home, I revisited the river. The images, the memories, the stories of other women and their experiences along her banks.

I spent the next four years revisiting the river, not only had the physical landscape changed, so too had my memory of those places. They looked smaller, landscapes vividly ingrained in my memory had become unfamiliar. I wanted to get closer, to disappear into canyons, to hike through trails, to find the poetry in the details. I wanted to listen to the landscape that played host to the stories from myself and so many other women.

Through dialogue, shared experience and knowledge, I collaborated with women from different backgrounds connected to the river; Indigenous, boat builders, geologists, therapists, park rangers, thru hikers, writers and artists.

This resulting body of work is a collection of interconnected female narratives that take place on and along the Colorado River. Examining the parallels between women and water, themes of eco-feminism and the current shift in representation of women in the wild as well as my own place and performativity within that system.

The work is a testament to all the pioneering women whose small actions and grand ideas pave the way, continually drawn to a life of curiosity in the great outdoors.

A homage to all the women that have been, all the women that are and all the women that have yet to be…….

…you amaze me.