Project Watershed’s Keeping It Living Campaign is run every year to inspire everyone in the Valley to celebrate, protect and restore the hardest working piece of blue-green infrastructure in the Comox Valley; the K’omoks Estuary.
This year Project Watershed has selected the showing of Pieces of an Estuary as the main artistic component of Keeping It Living 2016.
“We are always looking for new and engaging ways to celebrate the Estuary and this audiovisual project fit the bill and has definitely taken us into new territory,” said Caila Holbrook, Project Watershed outreach co-ordinator.
Pieces of an Estuary is a dynamic environmental art and public education project in consultation with the David Suzuki Foundation and in partnership with Project Watershed. The project was offered as a combined studio and humanities course at North Island College this Spring, as part of the collaborative BFA program with Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Students from a variety of artistic disciplines shared outdoor adventures, learned skills in audio and video recording and editing, conducted interviews with local experts and site visits, developed soundscape compositions, and collaborated with local musician Joanna Finch (JoBird Music) and local sound engineer James Mattila (StudioLive in Cumberland) to create short videos celebrating and raising awareness about the economic and cultural values of a local ecological oasis: the K’ómoks Estuary.
“The course culminates on opening night in the public screening and concert event as a catalyst for community dialogue,” said Sarah Van Borek, course instructor.
Opening night is on Tuesday, April 12, 7-9 p.m. The museum will also be open for visitors to explore during the event. The event is by donation and open to the public, so please feel free to bring others and spread the word. The show will be exhibited in the Courtenay Museum from April 13-16. For more information and other Keeping It Living events visit projectwatershed.ca.
