ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
Arts Residencies:
Connecting People &
Communities Back to Our Waters
2024: Our Inaugural Year
Growing. Learning. Collaborating. Inspiring.
Because Milwaukee Water Commons believes in the singular ability of art to connect and engage people, five local artists explored issues surrounding our common waters and water equity in our first Artists in Residence program.
To begin, the artists joined neighborhood activists in Water School, our water stewardship and leadership development training series. Next they collaborated with their fellow artists in residence to delve into artistic practices to inspire others to take action to heal our common waters and our city. Then each began developing a water-focused, public facing art piece and a supporting community engagement action.
The result: five unique works from a citywide group of creative practitioners who became informed water leaders during the residency.
Here’s a glimpse of their work and their artist statements.
NATEYA TAYLOR
Something in the Water
Short documentary film
Something in the Water details Black Milwaukeeans’ experiences with lead poisoning. The film follows five local water justice community advocates and captures the past, present, and future of water justice in the city. First, the film reveals the past: the racist history of residential segregation in Milwaukee, which has resulted in Black neighborhoods and residents being lead poisoned at disproportionate rates today.
The film also reveals the adverse effects of lead poisoning on the health of Black residents in Milwaukee, policy initiatives led by community leaders to combat lead poisoning, and how impacted community members are organizing to bring more awareness to the issue. The film also
reviews community input on how the city
should take action to better the future of
its water and its residents.
DEMAR WALKER
CURRENTS
Volume 1: Flow
My goal was to create a zine highlighting various socio-political perspectives on the theme of water, how we engage with it in the “everyday” and celebrating those defining moments because it is vital to our daily lives. The zine contains poetry, essays, photography, original artwork, and other contributions.
Each is unique, ranging from what I consider as mundane to magical. Some of the topics include body image, grief, spirituality, cultural history, 90s R&B music videos, site-specific artwork in Milwaukee, and more. It is my hope
that readers of CURRENTS find a deeper appreciation
for water and use it as a conversation starter
about their water stewardship as community
members in their area.
DAN KIRCHEN
Little Free Library of Sustainability
Little Free Seed Library
Great Lakes Bird Houses
During the residency, my projects evolved into creating a book receptacle, seed exchange and bird houses incorporating the droplet design, all installed outside Adams Garden Park in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee. From a prominent location outside the offices on West Fond du Lac Avenue, the little free library of sustainability is stocked with books for children and adults, connecting neighbors to environmental justice issues through art and literature. The little free seed library offers neighbors and passers by a variety of seeds of native plants, vegetables and more from the sculpture garden behind the Adams Garden Park building.
Ideally, the seed library will help the space become a place for nearby garden groups to hold workshops and events. Five bird houses perch above the native perennial gardens of the building, each featuring a Great Lake, collaboratively painted with the help of friends and neighbors of Milwaukee Water Commons. These projects are just the beginning of another
chapter with Milwaukee Water Commons and
Milwaukee area groups that decide to become
good stewards of Milwaukee’s waters.
CECI TEJEDA
Tree of Life Water and Migration Mural
For millions of years, animals and humans have migrated to bodies of water to find a better place to live. This mural embraces the beauty of nature. Nature has no borders because migration is beautiful!
In Mexico, “El Arbol de la Vida” (“The Tree of Life”) represents many things, such as life, death, and the relationship between humans and nature. My “Arbol de la Vida” shows the relationship between humans, animals, water, and migration. I was raised in Mexico, where I was taught the value of taking care of water because of the absence of fresh water. Now that I live in Milwaukee, I feel so grateful to have access to one of the most valuable freshwater lakes in the world, Lake Michigan. It makes me feel responsible to be a steward of the water and use my platform as an artist to spread this message of advocacy and action.
As an immigrant working on this project, I've discovered profound connections between water and migration that my mural aims to encapsulate. The piece is crafted using the traditional Mexican technique called “cartoneria,” also known as papier-mâché. This technique, deeply rooted in my culture, adds a unique and rich dimension to the project.
I collaborated with Alexander Hamilton High School and Riverside University High School students. Each student created an element symbolizing the
relationship between water and migration. The
students created elements depicting native
Wisconsin animals such as butterflies,
hummingbirds, sturgeon, and sandhill
cranes in the act of migration, in this case
crossing the waters of Milwaukee.
ANN MORY WYDEVEN
Milwaukee Watersheds Interactive Mosaic Mural
Community projects are always rewarding and humbling, but none more than this project. Water School taught me just how much I did not know about water and although it is seemingly everywhere in Wisconsin, I feel I have only just scratched the surface of learning how to best be a steward for water here and everywhere.
My research took me to the history of Milwaukee, a city built on water, where I learned how the waterways have changed through the years. There has been significant progress helping revive the rivers, creeks and streams from damage and the considerable amount of work we can do going forward.
My community mosaic highlights the three major watersheds within Milwaukee and the three sub-watersheds that drain into Lake Michigan. The mosaic work was done with Alverno College faculty and students and will be used as a learning tool the the water programming at the Urban Ecology Center. Children and adults interact with the map using small miniatures to shape a discussion around using water, our rivers as recreation, habitat for native plants and animals, and pollutants that endanger clean water.
Three lesson plans will be built around ages 4-8, 9-14, 15-adult. Students use the mosaic map to place small objects, finding magnets
along the waterways that further indicate that
everything needs water. Every act of
carelessness, agricultural and industrial
pollution will also find its way to water.
Water is life. We are water and we need
accessto clean water.