Direct Action: Community River Cleanups

Upstream/Downstream

Upstream/Downstream is project that invites community members to participate in one or more cleanups of Deshkan Ziibi/Thames River that will be held in London and at Oneida Nation of the Thames. The first cleanup will take place on September 26 at 10:00 a.m. at Oneida Nation of the Thames. This cleanup will be followed by a second cleanup in London at the river forks (date tbd).  Everyone is welcome to participate in the cleanups. Bags, gloves, safety instructions, and picker uppers will be provided.

In addition to collecting garbage, we are also planning to capture video and photographs of the event. I will be working with poet and director Kevin Heslop and video artist Darr Sands to create a videopoem that will be included in the group exhibit. In addition to capturing footage of the cleanups, we will be chatting with participants about their experiences with the cleanup and asking them to share their memories about bodies of water that are important to them (participants are welcome to opt out of the interviews or film footage).  

This project is imagined as a community collaboration that brings together activism and art. In 2012, my partner Miriam Love and I started Antler River Rally, a grassroots environmental group that organizes monthly cleanups of the river. Over the years, our group has worked with hundreds of Londoners and local partners to cleanup the river, protect endangered species and habitat, educate the public about river ecology, and build eco-social literacy about environmental racism and overlapping social and environmental issues that coalesce at the river. Often, we pair river cleanups with poetry workshops, artist walks, and other arts-focused events.

In addition to the cleanups for Upstream/Downstream, please feel welcome to join any of our monthly cleanups. We have a cleanup scheduled for August 15th at Carfrae Park (9:30 start): Information can be found here: http://www.antlerriverrally.ca/