Join us on Thursday, January 23 at 7pm (Doors: 6:30pm) to celebrate the launch of Meandering: Art, Ecology, and Metaphysics (TBA21–Academy/Sternberg Press, 2024), a richly illustrated book that traces the TBA21–Academy fellowship program of the same name, curated by Sofia Lemos between 2021 and 2023.

Inspired by how rivers bend and curve, connecting entire ecosystems, the artistic fellowship Meandering unfolded the cultural, historical, spiritual, and ecological trajectories of waterways from source to sea. From 2021 to 2023, artists, scientists, and writers set out to trace the Guadalquivir River from the sierras and forests of southern Spain to the heartlands of the Americas and the undersurface of the Mediterranean, engaging with it as a site of social and environmental transformation. Building on the region’s ecomythologies and environmental histories, global in scope, the publication delves into the artistic imaginaries, collaborative research, and community-oriented practices that shaped this journey.

In recent years, contemporary artistic practice has consistently drawn connections between experiences of environmental racism in riverbank communities tied to the afterlives of slavery and climate injustices perpetrated by depredatory corporations. This program will bring Lemos and the interdisciplinary scholar Macarena Gómez-Barris together in dialogue. Responding to the publication, their conversation will consider the ways in which histories of rivers’ destruction and dispossession co-exist with the resilient and vibrant aspects of river life, guided by a decolonial approach to artmaking that does not merely extract from and deplete ecological life but offers a regenerative cultural practice.

Photo: Fernando Sendra, Courtesy TBA21–Academy