In 2019, an extensive network of artists brought all their senses to the Mississippi River, paddling downstream in canoes, venturing up multiple tributaries, clambering over collapsing infrastructures, trudging across muddy banks and experiencing the river’s seasonal pulse. From the Headwaters in Minnesota to the Bird’s Foot Delta in New Orleans we set up five research hubs, delving deep into written and oral histories and creating works of all kinds, including guided tours, performances, pamphlets, lectures, shared meals and temporary shows for visitors and local inhabitants. Our concerns ranged across river ecologies, Indigenous, Black and settler-colonial histories, agriculture, urbanization, engineering, state and corporate violence, and the overflowing of liberation struggles that continue today.

OVERFLOW: the Mississippi in every state imaginable

At Watershed

At Co-Prosperity

Videos