Meandering

A case study for community-oriented artistic research into the cultural, spiritual, and ecological trajectories of waterways.

Inspired by how rivers bend and curve, connecting entire ecosystems, Meandering: Art, Ecology, and Metaphysics unfolds the cultural, historical, spiritual, and ecological trajectories of waterways, reflecting the vitality of water, from source to sea. A diverse group of artists and writers set out to trace river systems from the sierras and forests of southern Spain, to the heartlands of the Americas and the undersurface of the Mediterranean, proposing new routes for collaborative research and knowledge-production.

In newly commissioned texts and a selection of influential essays--including a transhistorical dialogue between the twelfth-century mystic, Ibn ’Arabî and the renowned essayist, Sylvia Wynter--as well as lyrics, scent, recipes, critical-contemplative writing, and guided meditations, Meandering combines rich visual documentation with insights from the fields of art, visual culture, environmental humanities, ecotheosophy, mysticism, critical theory, and decolonial studies. This volume offers a practical and poetic toolset for a dynamic reconciliation between action and imagination to address the pressing social and environmental challenges of our time.

This publication is part of an art and ecology research program of the same name curated by Sofia Lemos at TBA21-Academy. By exploring social and environmental justice through the lens of community-oriented practice, it presents a case for the role of artistic research and public programs in revealing our interbeing, and shapes new convergences between interdisciplinary and interfaith studies.

Contributors
Jesús Alcaide, Sally F. Barleycorn, Lourdes Cabrera, Edgar Calel, Federico Campagna, Carolina Caycedo, Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu, Elizabeth Gallón Droste, Victoria García Gómez, Francisco Godoy Vega, Brooke Holmes, Lafawndah, Sofia Lemos, Isabel Lewis, Gracia López Anguita, Juan Lopéz Intzín, Gabrielle Mangeri, Michael Marder, Ana María Millán, Eduardo Navarro, Carmen Pérez Cuello, Lorenzo Sandoval, Chaveli Sifre, Emilija Skarnulytė, Medina Tenour Whiteman, Rosa Tharrats, Caique Tizzi, and Sylvia Wynter.

Copublished by TBA21-Academy

Sofia Lemos is a curator and writer. Between 2021-2023, she was Curator at TBA21-Academy, where she led the communities-oriented art and ecology research program Meandering. From 2018-2021, she was Curator of Public Programmes and Research at Nottingham Contemporary and was Associate Editor at The Contemporary Journal. Lemos was Associate Curator of Public Programmes to the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art--RIBOCA (2020), with previous curatorial and research roles at Contour biennale 8, HKW, Berlin, PRAXES, Berlin, DRAF, London, and MACBA, Barcelona. Her writing has appeared in Art-Agenda, Frieze, Mousse, and numerous exhibition catalogues and artist monographs.