River For a Thousand Years

River for a Thousand Years is a community-based project that began in 2011 in order to address the issue of pollution affecting the Espíritu Santo River in its flow through the town of Unión Hidalgo in the isthmus of Oaxaca, Mexico. Emily C-D worked with children from the community during an extended period as artist-in-residence of the Gubidxa Gallery, guiding the participants through various activities that allowed them to see, feel, and reflect on the importance of recuperating and safeguarding their local waterway.

Emily taught the children to make one-string guitars, rattles and drums out of the trash they picked up in the streets and pulled out of the river. Additionally, the kids enthusiastically helped Emily to collect and wash innumerable plastic bottles, which she painted and fashioned into a rainbow-colored snake. Complete with their homemade garbage noisemakers and costumes, with the serpent held high above their heads, the group paraded through the streets of the town. Finally, in an act representative of an all-too-common habit of the modern human, the procession descended down to the river and threw the garbage snake into the water. The colorful sculpture drifted downstream, mixing with the flotsam, as the children ran along the riverbank (much faster than they had anticipated necessary!), in order to pull the trash serpent out of the river before she reached the sea. Artifacts from the workshops and documentation of the public performance (by Austrian photographer Uli Loskot) were included in a final exhibition in the gallery that celebrated the collective action, while simultaneously challenging the reasons for its necessity.