Category Archives: buoys

October 16, 2023

Monument to Freedom

By DP

Now comes the Equal Justice Initiative, announcing the creation of yet another dimension to their profoundly transformative work, bringing obscured or suppressed histories fully into the light.

Below, we relay the press release together with a video link.

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Opening early 2024, the new 17-acre Freedom Monument Sculpture Park will bring together history, narrative, large-scale sculptures, contemporary art commissions from many of the greatest living artists, a new National Monument to Freedom honoring enslaved people who were emancipated after the Civil War, and many historic artifacts that together create an immersive, multifaceted examination of America’s history with a focus on slavery and its legacy.

The Sculpture Park will join EJI’s award-winning Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice to form the Legacy Sites. The Sculpture Park fuses the power of art with history, animates the humanity and struggle of enslaved Black Americans, and sheds light on our nation’s history. Designed to be experienced as one journey, visitors are encouraged to visit all three Legacy Sites.

The Freedom Monument Sculpture park will feature newly commissioned works by artists including Alison Saar and Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, alongside major sculptures from Wangechi Mutu, Rose B. Simpson, Theaster Gates, and Kehinde Wiley.

The National Monument to Freedom will be the highlight of the experience. Standing 43 feet tall and over 150 feet long, the Monument will honor all four million enslaved Black people who were emancipated at the end of the Civil War by memorializing more than 120,000 unique surnames documented at the time. 

The Monument will celebrate the courageous survivors of this horrific era by recognizing the families they created and millions of their descendants, many of whom still carry the names chosen by their formerly enslaved foreparents. 

The plaza surrounding the National Monument will feature writings from Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and James Weldon Johnson. Visitors will be able to honor formerly enslaved people by placing flowers in a stream that flows next to the Monument. 

Space for reflection, remembrance, and contemplation will mark the conclusion of the journey through Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.

“In order to deepen our collective understanding of racial injustice and its impact on contemporary issues, our country must reckon with the painful history and legacy of slavery,” said EJI Director Bryan Stevenson. “Historical examination and memorialization are critical to help move us forward and build healthier communities, and we’re honored to work with some of the greatest contemporary artists to provide a cultural space for all visitors to engage with this vital part of history.”  

“Slavery touched almost every corner of the world—from the Americas to Africa and Europe—and we invite everyone to visit Freedom Monument Sculpture Park for a profound experience that will illuminate challenging aspects of our past, while inspiring a more hopeful future shaped by truth and justice.” 

Situated on the banks of the Alabama River, where tens of thousands of enslaved Black people were trafficked by boat and rail, the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park creates an immersive experience in a historically significant physical space where visitors can deepen their knowledge and understanding of history, the power of art, and the importance of justice.  

More details about the opening of Freedom Monument Sculpture Park will be announced in the coming months. 

 

 

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September 22, 2023

Miracles of Beauty

By DP

Now come the extraordinary Columbian dance school El Colegio del Cuerpo and the dance company Cuerpo de Indias, founded “as an act of resistance to heal  the wounds of the collective body,” under the direction of Álvaro Restrepo and Marie-France Delieuvin. In a recent profile, we were struck by one quote in particular:

This country has suffered so much violence. And all the violence that has happened to our parents, our grandparents, continues to live in them. It has not been forgotten. They’ve been burned by it, and they carry these ashes. We, their children, carry these ashes too and feel the weight of these heavy emotions all the time. For me, dance is a miracle because we can put in our anger and sorrow to make something beautiful. And beauty in any form is a miracle.

A feast for the senses, created from the ashes:

 

FROM: SPIRIT OF THE BIRD

 

PREPARATION FOR ASCENDANCE

And one more quote:

“Art opens many worlds, especially in a country like Colombia, where the body has been destroyed, massacred, during so many years of war. Dance, beginning with a body, can initiate a reconciliation – first with one’s self and then with others.”

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August 17, 2023

A Critical Precedent

By DP

Mainstream media coverage of the extraordinary ruling in Held vrs. State of Montana was fragmentary, unfocussed and overshadowed by more ostensibly dramatic events in Hawaii and Georgia.

Though those events are also deeply related  to climate emergency and threats to democracy, we wish to underscore the significance of the Montana case, particularly in the court’s findings of fact. Below, excerpts from the press release issued by Our Children’s Trust on August 14:

Helena, MT—In an historic first, Judge Kathy Seeley in the First Judicial District Court of Montana ruled wholly in favor of the 16 youth plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana, declaring that the state of Montana violated the youth’s constitutional rights, including their rights to equal protection, dignity, liberty, health and safety, and public trust, which are all predicated on their right to a clean and healthful environment. The court invalidated as unconstitutional and enjoined Montana laws that promoted fossil fuels and required turning a blind eye to climate change. The court ruled the youth plaintiffs had proven their standing to bring the case by showing significant injuries, the government’s substantial role in causing them, and that a judgment in their favor would change the government’s conduct.

Read the full decision here.

In a 103-page decision, Judge Seeley’s Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order set forth critical evidentiary and legal precedent for the right of youth to a safe climate, including these highlights:

● “Each additional ton of GHGs exacerbates impacts to the climate.”

● “Every additional ton of GHG emissions exacerbates Plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.”

● “Plaintiffs’ injuries will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change.”

● “Plaintiffs have proven that as children and youth, they are disproportionately harmed by fossil fuel pollution and climate impacts.”

● “The State authorizes fossil fuel activities without analyzing GHGs or climate impacts, which result in GHG emissions in Montana and abroad that have caused and continue to exacerbate anthropogenic climate change.”

● The order provides meaningful redress to plaintiffs’ injuries because “the amount of additional GHG emissions emitted into the climate system today and in the coming decade will impact the long-term severity of the heating and the severity of Plaintiffs’ injuries.”

● “The Defendants have the authority under the statutes by which they operate to protect Montana’s environment and natural resources, protect the health and safety of Montana’s youth, and alleviate and avoid climate impacts by limiting fossil fuel activities that occur in Montana when the MEPA analysis shows that those activities are resulting in degradation or other harms which violate the Montana Constitution.”

● “Montana’s contributions to GHG emissions can be measured incrementally and cumulatively both in terms of immediate local effects and by mixing in the atmosphere and contributing to global climate change and an already destabilized climate system.”

● “Montana’s GHG contributions are not de minimis but are nationally and globally significant. Montana’s GHG emissions cause and contribute to climate change and Plaintiffs’ injuries and reduce the opportunity to alleviate Plaintiffs’ injuries.”

● Court finds that Earth Energy Imbalance is the most critical scientific metric in determining climate stability and includes a graphic showing that 350 ppm was the level of CO2 where the Earth was last within energy balance. Allowing consideration of climate change “would provide the clear information needed to conform their decision-making to the best science and their constitutional duties and constraints, and give them the necessary information to deny permits for fossil fuel activities when inconsistent with protecting Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”

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The youth plaintiffs claimed their lives and liberties were at stake, including their constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment, to equal protection of the law, to individual dignity, and to safety, health, and happiness – and the responsibility of their state government to cease its actions that exacerbate the climate crisis, degrade Montana’s environment and natural resources, and harm the youth.

The youth plaintiffs in this case did not not seek money in their lawsuit. Instead, today’s ruling declared that state laws prohibiting Montana agencies from considering climate change or greenhouse gas emissions when permitting fossil fuel activities were unconstitutional. The laws declared unconstitutional and enjoined included laws passed during the 2023 legislative session. The legislative and executive branches will now be responsible for conforming their practices around fossil fuels to the judge’s ruling, including the admonition that “every additional ton of GHG emissions exacerbates Plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.”

The State has 60 days to decide whether to appeal the decision to the Montana Supreme Court.

Youth plaintiffs in the case were elated by Judge Seeley’s ruling and expressed immense gratitude to everyone who made this possible.

“This ruling, this case; it is truly historic. We are heard! Frankly the elation and joy in my heart is overwhelming in the best way. We set the precedent not only for the United States, but for the world.” – Kian, youth plaintiff

“I’m so speechless right now. I’m really just excited and elated and thrilled. I cannot believe the ruling. I’m just so relieved. I feel so grateful to have worked with every single person who has been involved in this. Everybody from Our Children’s Trust is just amazing. They’re all so wonderful. And I have so much love and appreciation for the other youth plaintiffs because they’re just so fantastic and such wonderful people. And we together have done this amazing thing and it’s just so wonderful.” – Eva, youth plaintiff

 

MONTANA YOUTH FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES

 
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August 5, 2023

Moon and Stars

By DP

Now comes our featured climate emergency “lifeboat” project for the summer, which we encountered during an extraordinary music festival on a remote hilltop meadow organized by the extended family and community at Fledgling Farmstead in Tunbridge, Vermont: Moon and Stars.

From their own website:

Moon and Stars is an organization based in Vermont’s Upper Valley. Our mission is to connect community, traditional food, and regenerative farming through heirloom corn and the arepa-making process. The organization strives to provide nutrient-dense and culturally vital food, while both engaging community in ancestral knowledge and creating new ideas about cultural and environmental sustainability.

 

 

An arepa is a round patty made of ground corn. Is a staple dish in Colombia and Venezuela. Traditionally arepas were made with heirloom native open pollinated corn specific to each region of the Andes. The characteristics vary by color, flavor, size, and thickness depending on the region. It can be topped or filled with vegetables, eggs, cheese, hogao (tomatoes, scallions sauted on olive oil), beans.

Over the last 50 years the tradition of growing heirloom corn to make the arepa has declined, as corn has become one of the world’s most commodified and genetically modified grains. With the aperture of the Free Trade Agreement in the 90’s Colombia went from producing one million hectares of corn down to 300,000 and started importing GMO corn from the US. We believe that significant cultural heritage around food has been exploited. The growth of conventional GMO corn has proven detrimental to waterways, ecological systems and biodiversity. Growing corn organically and sustainably can help to restore soil habitats through the process of regenerative agriculture, using cover cropping, rotational grazing and no-till processes. At the same time it brings back to life that part of our culture.

What if we could grow an heirloom corn, produce a traditional arepa and help regenerate ecology and community?

With our regenerative business model we believe that we can grow organic, heirloom corn, provide a high quality nutritional arepa, cultivate community and demonstrate a new way forward connecting regenerative farming practices and cultural traditions.

Connecting communities through traditional foods, music, education and cultural celebrations, we aim to build a regenerative community that supports a local economy. By partnering with like minded small farms and markets to source ethically grown produce to create our recipes, we are contributing to the resiliency of community, decreasing our dependency on industrial agriculture and thereby reducing our carbon footprints while co-creating a thriving, multicultural and just local food system.

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Such projects provide a compass towards a new way of living with Mother Earth on the other side of the climate crisis.

How can the DP community help Moon & Stars become an ever-stronger and more vibrant lifeboat? Very easy, when in the vicinity of South Royalton, Vermont: buy their delicious artisanal arepas!

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July 26, 2023

Everywhere We Look

By DP

Here in New England, signs of what writer/ecologist Jeremy Lent calls “the First Extermination Event” are everywhere, above all in crashing avian and insect populations. Below, an excerpt from a 2021 essay first published in the vibrant pages of Resilience. Every word still rings true, as ominously silent summer meadows confirm.

 

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June 15, 2023

No Greater Atonement

By DP

Now comes Lebanese author and human rights activist Joumana Haddad with a few excerpts from an introduction to a series of vivid portraits and interviews with Lebanese artists, designers and even a chef. It strikes us that her comments will find resonance well beyond the borders of Lebanon.

No images: the linked portrait photographs speak very eloquently for themselves.

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May 26, 2023

Standing Strong

By DP

As the Memorial Day weekend unfolds, we simply relay the most recent message from Standing Rock Chairwoman Janet Alkire, regarding recent pipeline strategy:

We are preparing, once again, for battle. In 2016 and 2017, the NoDAPL camps here at Standing Rock grew to encompass tens of thousands of people and created an explosion of awareness of our Indigenous struggle on the frontlines of the water and climate crises. By standing strong together, we captured the world’s attention and ignited a powerful movement for Native and environmental justice. Now, as we ready to re-engage the legal fight to end the Dakota Access pipeline, it remains critical that we act with unity and purpose. In that spirit, I invite you to watch Standing Strong Together, the fourteenth chapter of our Dakota Water Wars video series, co-produced by Standing Rock Nation in partnership with the Great Plains Tribal Water Alliance and Lakota People’s Law Project.

The video highlights a recent pipeline strategy meeting we held at Standing Rock. Watched over by our ancestors, tribal leaders and water protectors gathered to discuss a new coordinated offensive, including a lawsuit and public comments barrage to challenge DAPL’s soon-to-be-released Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Just last week, we held another meeting with Michael Connor, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. We now have clarity that the EIS will become available for public comment at the end of June.

And that’s where you come in. We will need to flood the Army Corps with public feedback demanding a valid EIS. We already know this one, written by a firm beholden to Big Extraction, will be worthless. (The company hired to prepare the current EIS is a member of the American Petroleum Institute and argued against us at a DAPL hearing!)

It’s past time for the government to force compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and stop the flow of oil through this illegally operational pipeline. As it has been since the very beginning of this movement, our fight is your fight. By stopping DAPL, and by opposing every incursion onto sacred lands by the fossil fuel industry, we can protect our communities and the Earth and water we all share. Your voice, and all voices, will be critical. Please stand strong together with us.

Mni Wiconi. Water is life!

Janet Alkire
Chairwoman
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

 

 

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May 12, 2023

Of Circles and Soil

By DP

Now comes the radiant voice of Camille Dungy, in excerpts from a recent interview circling around the themes of Camille’s book, Soil: the Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. Images and captions added by DP.

 

 

A FAVORITE DP NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

 

 

SCORE FOR A GLORIOUS FIDDLEHEAD INCANTATION

 

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April 9, 2023

Haec Dies

By DP

Above all else, during the time of the lifeboats, we shall need a joyful spirit of rebirth, wonder and divine regeneration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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April 2, 2023

Nhh Nhh Nhh

By DP

Now comes author Anna Badkhen, whose essay collection Bright Unbearable Reality, was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award. Born in the Soviet Union, Badkhen is now a U.S. citizen. Below, an excerpt from a remarkable essay in Orion, a publication that seems to become more vibrant with every issue. Image and caption added by DP.

 

 

HEIROGLYPHS FOR THE FUTURE

 

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