Meanderings

Welcome to Meanderings, a project that focuses on the enrichment of landscapes of affordances in human relation to the lands/waters who support our lives and livelihoods. That is to say, the multiplication, diversification, and amplification of possibilities perceived by humans for interaction with the hydrobiotic places with which we live. Below is a chronicle of my own education of riparian attention.

This project began as part of a presearch methodology, between the Novembers of 2020 and 2021, in preparation to do research with riparian habitats in the Okanagan watershed, syilx (Okanagan) territory. In an effort to intentionally cultivate my attentive capacities in these habitats, I walked through a riparian habitat multiple times a week, photographing that which grabbed my attention. Later in the day, usually in my home, I would caption a selection of these photos with whatever came to mind in that moment of reflection. The captions are questioning, cryptic, and sometimes funny, though often only to me. Individually, these captioned photos serve as markers to which I can refer back in further exploration of this (research) landscape. They code the seasons and anchor experiences, affect, and weather in my imaginary and memory of these riparian places. Collectively the photos, captions, and associated alt-text are a recording of my attention in and with the riparian; chronologically they catalogue the arc of my riparian relations. Learn more about the project, including ethics and self-imposed guidelines here.