Riparian ReAnimation

Riparian Reanimation Workshop, 2023.

Floodplain and riparian habitats that extend out from creeks and rivers are critical to life in the Okanagan valley. In Kelowna, the watershed’s largest city, an entirely channelized waterway by the name of Brandt’s Creek, runs from an urban residential district to the valley bottom, where it once opened into a marshy floodplain. While it is not currently possible, nor perhaps desirable, to return this channel to its former marshy self, this creek requires care, attention, and room to roam in order to accommodate floodwaters in times of swell, an increasing concern for this habitat and neighboring communities. As a way of inviting community members to expand and explore their relationships with Brandt’s Creek, we have created a large-scale, mobile puppetry project that moves within the historic floodplain of this creek.

Riparian: the habitat or interface between land and water including river(s), stream(s), creek(s), and ditches.

Riparian Reanimation Workshop, 2023

This is a research creation experiment in the transformative power of community art to generate much-needed diverse conversations about and with riparian life in the Okanagan. We are holding weekly community workspace to create and animate puppets during the spring and summer of 2023.

Once a sufficiently biodiverse collection of puppets have been created they will be present at various events, from community arts festivals to academic conferences, through the end of 2023 (and hopefully beyond). As a way of inviting community members to expand and explore their relationships with the flowing bodies of water that give life to this valley, these parade-style riparian character puppets will flood the now overwhelmingly concrete-covered terrain where they once thrives in biodiverse riparian floodplain community.

Riparian ReAnimation is a collaboration between UBC Okanagan researchers, Kelowna’s Rotary Center for the Arts, the Rhizome Eco-Social Education Society, and sylix knowledge holders Pamela Barnes and Jasmine Peone. Puppet design is supported by Cathy Stubington, of Runaway Moon Theatre. Puppets and the stories they will help tell are co-created with, about, and for the Okanagan’s riparian communities.

ReAnimation in action

Six people in a room full of giant puppet crafts, all engaged in their tasks. One sits on the floor, and one in a chair, the rest stand.
Two people smile while kneeling on the ground painting a piece of fire-cardboard red.
One person sits on top of a loose bike trailer, attached on one end to a craft table, while another holds a cardboard cutout of flames alongside.
Evacuating Woodhaven Regional Park
Two people lean over a table to work on a collection of green paper leaves.
Leaf factory.
Two peple hold up consecutive parts of a snake puppet.
That’s one photogenic snake!

writing & media

cottonwood jingle

The Riparian ReAnimation project, now taking shape as giant puppets, grew from the inkling that it would be fun to reanimate ecological mini-dramas, which play out constantly in any habitat and can be perceived by an observer who has the perceptual ability to attend to the story arc. A first attempt at this was a jingle about cottonwood trees that Moos van Caspel and I wrote over the course of a year, from 2020 to 2021.

Cottonwood leaves
Cottonwood leaves
Fall in the water
They came from the trees

Brown and yellow
No longer green
Bringing the nutrients
back to the stream

Cottonwood wood
Cottonwood wood
Growing as only a cottonwood could

Loved by beavers
Birds and bugs
Perfectly content
With occasional floods

Cottonwood bud
Cottonwood bud
Covered in resin
The trees’ lifeblood

Oh so sticky
What can you do?
Make an ointment for cuts
Or a powerful glue

Cottonwood fuzz
Cottonwood fuzz
Cottonwoods doing
what a cottonwood does

Making fuzz
All day long
Even while we are
Singing this song.

(Donald & van Caspel, 2021)

riparian poem

Another version of this reanimating project exists as a poem-like contribution to the forthcoming publication Aquatic Encounters (Rooftop Press, edited by Anastasia Khodyreva and Elina Suoyrjö, curated by Tuukka Kaila). Here presented overtop of a series of riparian photos.

  • White text over an image of a concrete waterway with a white steel grate. Yellow grasses and snow cover the banks of the waterway.
    Slide 1/20: Riparian, a poem Instructions: Use the left and right arrows to move through the slideshow.
  • Black and white text over an image of a concrete waterway. The tips of Madi's yellow sit on the grassy edge of the concrete. The text reads alongside creeks and rivers
    Slide 2/20: alongside, creeks and rivers;
  • Black text overlaid on an image of a yellow building with green trees sprouting on the sides. The overlay text reads around mountains hills buildings
    Slide 3/20: around, mountains, hills, buildings;
  • Black text overlaid on an image of a tree in a dark pond. The pond water has a layer ice that the tree is gently cutting through. The text reads athwart, the fallen and falling, feet paws flippers fins;
    Slide 4/20: athwart, the falling and falling, feet, paws, flippers, fins;
  • Black text overlaid on an image of a green field with a wide cloudscape over head. There are buildings in the distance at the edge of the field. The overlay text reads because of glacial deposition and recession, freshet, weather, change;
    Slide 5/20: Because of, glacial deposition and recession, freshet, weather, change;
  • Black and white text over an image of a shored boat. The boat is black and white and some foliage and water has collected in its base. The text reads beside, meanders, valleys, food seekers and food makers
    Slide 6/20: beside, meanders, valleys, food seekers and food makers
  • Black text beside an image of a two plants, one gone to seed and the other in bloom. The text reads between, seasons, in/declines, definitions
    Slide 7/20: between, seaasons, in/declines, definitions
  • Black and white text over an image of green leaves. One leaf has evidence of worm trailings through it. The text reads composed by, trees, imagination, critters, maps;
    Slide 8/20: composed by, trees, imagination, critters, maps;
  • Black and white beside an image of a plant climbing green pipes. The text reads encompassing, dreams, destinations, pathways, and ontologies;
    Slide 9/20: encompassing, dreams, destinations, pathways, and ontologies.
  • Black text over an image of decaying wood with fungus growing over it. The text reads following time.
    Slide 10/20: following time;
  • Black and white text over an image of a green plant covered in orange growths. The text reads habituated to, change desiccation, overwhelm, and doing what is possible given the circumstances
    Slide 11/20: habituated to, changes, desiccation, overwhelm, and doing what is possible given the circumstances;
  • Black and white text over an image of 15 large sand and gravel bags for flooding. Two of the bags are ripped open with their contents spilling onto the walkway. Another bag is slumped over. the text reads indicative of survival, possibility
    Slide 12/20: indicative of survival (,) possibility;
  • Black and white text over an image of wild flowers. The text reads inhabited by friends, spikey things, things that go bump in the night
    Slide 13/20: inhabited by, friends, spikey things, things that go bump in the night
  • Black and white text over an image of a concrete bridge. the text reads in spite of concrete and things that go bump in the day
    Slide 14/20: in spite of, concrete, and things that go bump in the
  • White text over an image of a purple wildflower surrounded by lush greenery. The text reads needs, whims, deepest desires; nearby
    Slide 15/20: needs, whims, deepest desires; nearby,
  • Black and white text over an image of tree trunk that is growing around/through a fence. Years of sap are collecting around the tree trunk. The text reads next to, hands held in solidarity, wrung in anxiety, and joined in courage.
    Slide 16/20: next to, hands held in solidarity, wrung in anxiety, an joined in courage
  • Black text over an image of plants sticking together and releasing their seed pods. The text reads opportunity for reorientation, habituation, gratitude.
    Slide 17/20: opportunity, for reorientation, habituations, gratitude.
  • Black and white text over an image of brown leaves on the edge of a waterway. The water has pushed the leaves into a rock so that they make a stack. The text reads refuge, for those attentive to flows;
    Slide 18/20: refuge for those attentive to flows;
  • White text over an image of a plant growing between the asphalt and dirt. There is a group of people looking at the landscapein the distance
    Slide 19/20: yearning for, a chance (or two).
  • A green image on a black background. Madeline's outline/shadow in the centre. White text reads: poems and photos by Madeline Donald to be printed in a forthcoming publication by Rooftop Press in 2023, edited and curated by Anatasia Khodyreva, Eline Suoyriö, and Tuukke Kaila.
    Slide 20/20: Poem and photos by Madeline Donald.
Logo for Riparian ReAnimation project with the project title below a shilouetted beaver, heron, and marshy plants.

UBC Okanagan News

An article titled “A hidden waterway comes alive through community art,” was written by Viola Cohen and colleagues about the Riparian ReAnimation project as it relates to research with and alongside Brandt’s Creek in Kelowna, BC.

Daybreak South

Tune in to hear Andrew Stauffer and Madeline Donald in conversation with Chris Walker on CBC Radio’s Daybreak South. The conversation describes the Riparian ReAnimation project and its intention to bring community artistic zeal to riparian ecological lifeways. [listen here]

A swallowtail butterfly, yellow with black stripes and pointy wings, alights on a drooping showy milkweed flower beside the Okanagan river channel.

Public Humanities Hub

The Public Humanities Hub at the University of British Columbia Okanagan was one of the first organizations to support this project, as described by this blog post.