New River Conservancy (NRC) and the Center for Appalachian Studies (CAS) invite you to Water Cycle – a free, family-friendly event on Sunday, June 2 from 3:00 – 8:00 PM in Creston, NC at Riverview Community Center that will showcase area artists and offer hands-on workshops for the public. The goal of the event is to amplify the need and increase awareness of the importance of a clean and healthy watershed. Workshops begin at 3:00 PM and will feature water monitoring, weaving, poetry, and photography.
Performances featuring live music, poetry, and film will start at 6:30 to 8:00 PM. Performers include Trevor McKenzie and Julie Shepherd Powell, Scot Pope and Brenda Smith, and Annie Woodford. A special screening of the Trash Trout Motion Picture Show will close the show. The Trash Trout Motion Picture Show, produced by Tom Hansell, utilizes trash collected from the New River as art on the big screen. Trash is easy to miss when it is alongside the road, it’s just a small piece of paper or plastic we drive by at 60 MPH. When it is blown up on a screen we can’t miss it and perhaps will pay closer attention to it in our environment in the future.
As our communities continue to change, the arts play an incomparable role in addressing many of our communal and individual challenges and strengths. Water Cycle will engage artists and water quality monitors to protect freshwater resources along the New River in western North Carolina. Artists and community members will engage in river clean ups, participate in workshops to create art from the river trash, and produce live performance events that feature stories, songs, and art from the New River.
Event Sponsors include New River Conservancy, the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University, Riverview Community Center and is funded in part by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council.
Water Cycle is a multi-phased project that will engage artists and water quality monitors to protect freshwater resources along the New River in western North Carolina. Artists and community members will engage in river clean ups, participate in workshops to create art from the river trash, and produce live performance events that feature stories, songs, and art from the river.
At these events, the NRC will offer free training for new citizen water quality monitors. For the second phase of the project, Tom Hansell will collaborate with the new water monitors to visually represent the data they collect. After a year of monitoring, a water quality report and related artwork will be presented during Ashe County’s monthly gallery crawl and made accessible in an online format. This project highlights the deep connections between freshwater ecosystems and the health of our region.
For more information please contact Tom Hansell at hansellts@appstate.edu
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