3 Rivers 2nd Nature (3r2n) is a five-year project that addresses the meaning, form and function of the three rivers and 53 streams of Allegheny County in Western Pennsylvania. This project builds on the success of strategic creative inquiry, ecosystem analysis and community dialogue developed by the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry through the Nine Mile Run Watershed project. 3 Rivers 2nd Nature consists of an interdisciplinary team of artists, scientists and a policy expert. The project addresses aquatic, terrestrial, and social issues of our rivers and streams, conducting an analysis of the green infrastructure (structural elements of a naturally functioning river ecosystem) that provides social, aesthetic, ecological and economic benefit to the Three Rivers Region. From these 3 subject areas our goal is to produce strategic knowledge that helps citizens and decision makers understand the evolving opportunities of our post-industrial waterfront. The rivers of our region have been dammed, managed, and used as a dump for the wastes of industry and cities for generations. Despite this history, the last thirty years of environmental improvements have resulted in a natural ecosystem that is in recovery, and a vacant great estate of industry that has the potential to reinforce public realm values. This type of recovery is often lost to a public dialogue that focuses on water quality failure or invasive plant incursions. This recovery of both environmental health and public access to water can either be enabled or undermined in the coming decade. Can artists working as cultural agents
affect the public policies and private economic programs
that mark and define urban places and ecosystems? Can we
develop a public realm advocacy that addresses the perception,
meaning, and form of nature, while expanding the creative
act beyond the authorship of the artist? questions,comments,concerns? |
-Henri Lefebvre |
