As Ungovernable as Mud: Wetlands, Agriculture, Central Illinois and the Mississippi Watershed

ByWater Institute Future Cities // Future Coasts Speaker Series, in collaboration with the Anthropocene River Campus 

Ryan Griffis, Ned Randolph, and Hannah Chalew in conversation!

"As Ungovernable as Mud: Wetlands, Agriculture, Central Illinois and the Mississippi Watershed"

Ryan Griffis is an artist and Associate Professor and Chair of New Media at the School of Art + Design at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is a field station collaborator in the Mississippi: An Anthropocene River project and a participant in the Anthropocene River campus. Ryan will discuss the watery realities of the territory now known as Central Illinois, as a water-land body directly connected to the Gulf via the Mississippi River Watershed. He will also talk about his work with the Deep Time Chicago project that investigates the political ecology of the greater Chicago area through creative practices. Ryan will then enter into conversation with Hannah Chalew, New Orleans artist and professor Ned Randolph.

Hannah, Ned, and Ryan will discuss the connections between Central Illinois and the Gulf along the Mississippi, how human activity and environmental change upriver have mirrored and impacted downriver people and systems, and what role the arts can play in helping us address these issues.

Hannah Chalew is an artist from New Orleans. Her artwork explores what it means to live in the age of climate change with an uncertain future looming, and specifically what that means for those of us living in Southern Louisiana.

A former journalist and head writer and speechwriter for the mayor of New Orleans, Ned Randolph investigates intersections of power and the environment. He is interested in how certain practices are naturalized and he unpacks the ethical and social implications of maintaining what the state of Louisiana euphemistically calls its “working coast” with restoration projects funded by oil and gas revenues.

Sponsored and organized by Tulane ByWater Institute, with support from New Orleans Center for the Gulf South

For more information about Anthropocene River Campus, visit: https://anthropocene-curriculum.org/project/mississippi/anthropocene-ri…