Drawing Water - in the aridlands
Ongoing research project
Published recently in On-Site Review 42: atlas:: being in place.
The publication is available free online www.onsitereview.ca
Story of the publication https://issuu.com/onsitereview/docs/onsitereview42atlas/s/18661044
The drawings illustrate the extraction methods, land formation, used instruments, grown products, policies of extraction and ownership, saturated thickness, and stratigraphy of dust and wetness. These maps explore - watersheds-based scenarios.
Since arriving in Lubbock last fall, I have been fascinated by the mechanisms leading to the depletion of the HPA. In the last few months, my research focused on unpacking the policies and regulations at play and exploring how to make visible the natural and operational processes that frame the spatial-political conditions.
Cycles of aridity leave traces on the territory of the Great Plains. Water in all states of wetness shaped the landscape and subterranean strata, bonding and holding down soil and flora. Horizontally the road grid system is cutting through pre-historical ephemeral draws, and vertically windmills pump out the ancient ocean to exhaustion. In this unforgiving landscape, the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer and the projected climate will bring hotter, drier, and more unpredictable weather and jeopardize local ecosystems and communities. This premise provides an opportunity to explore, invent, and develop spatial imaginaries for the commons (soil and water) – an opportunity to connect ecological sensibility with stewardship
preliminary drawings featured in the exhibition: aproximating these arid lands
Watershed overlay of the Ogallala aquifer, the high plains aquifer. Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kansas
Watershed based groundwater managment