A Project on Water Preservation in Partnership with the Seneca Nation in Allegheny and Cattaraugus Territory
HaUDENOSAUNEE CONFEDERACY • Karen Miranda Rivadeneira
From the 2021-2022 We, Women nationwide exhibit.
About the project
Karen is collaborating with people from the Seneca Nation to focus on water preservation, education, and community empowerment. We all live because of water, which is a source of healing. It’s also a basic human right, it’s justice, it’s culture, and it needs to be accessible and protected. The Great Lakes represent 20% of the world’s fresh surface water. However, more than 22 million pounds of plastic pollution end up here every year, including contamination from industrial and nuclear waste. The Allegheny River and the Cattaraugus creek are sacred waters to the Seneca Nation and a source of sustenance for the people and the wildlife. However, pollution concerns, fracking plans, water contamination, forest loss due to invasive insects, and a nuclear waste site threaten the waters and surrounding habitat. Ensuring clean water and protecting it from pollution and waste is one of the fundamental resources we can give to the next generation. In this project, Karen hopes to showcase beauty and resilience while also raising awareness about these critical issues facing our lifeline of water. As a society, we must listen to tribal members in their decision-making and to water keepers on ways to protect, empower, and take action in order to ensure that fresh surface water remains accessible and clean, here in New York and everywhere.
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
Access the We, Women Education Resource Guide here, where you can dive more deeply into the 19 We, Women projects and think more deeply about collaboration and community!
About the Artist
Growing up on the coast of Ecuador, Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira is an artist, healing arts practitioner, and educator now living in Upstate New York. With intersectional theories and earth-based healing informing her practice, Karen’s work focuses on memory, geo-poetics, ritual, and storytelling through collaborative processes and personal narratives. Nominated for Prix Pictet in 2019, her work has been exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery, the United Nations, Aperture Foundation, and the Photographic Museum of Humanity, among others. She has been an artist in residence in the United States, France, and Italy and has taught at CalArts, SVA, ICP, and CUNY. Karen has received multiple awards and fellowships and her first monograph Other Stories was published in 2017 by Autograph ABP.