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Fish Story Memphis: Memphis is the center of the world

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Abstract

In this article, artist Aviva Rahmani describes her methodology for an ecological art project about environmental restoration in Memphis, TN. The city of Memphis attracted her because it is in the middle of the third largest watershed in the world on the Mississippi River, the sixth largest river on earth. Fish Story was a transdisciplinary collaboration with paleoecologist Dr. James White and wetlands biologist Dr. Eugene Turner for Memphis Social, a citywide exhibition. The project launched May 4, 2013, and culminated with an installation that opened to the public May 11, 2013. It was a test for Rahmani's Trigger Point Theory, an approach to environmental degradation that locates nucleation sites to catalyze bioregional restoration for large degraded ecosystems. The Fish Story goal was to identify trigger points in Memphis and explore their activation. Fish were identified as iconic taxa, whose welfare reflects the welfare of the waters humans depend upon. As fish go, so go people. The story of fish is the story of our human future.

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Notes

  1. Transdisciplinarity, as a practice that transcends boundaries between the humanities and the sciences, has been promulgated as an answer to the Anthropocene. See Nicolescu, Basarab's “Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice.”

  2. More information about the project can be found at www.ghostnets.com.

  3. For images and additional information, visit http://womanmade.org/show.html?type=solo&gallery=inthegreen2013&pic=1.

  4. Recordings can be publicly accessed by visiting https://vimeo.com/user4960423/videos.

  5. See http://www.beautifulfields.org/.

  6. The phrase “Memphis is the center of the world” refers to a time when cotton dominated economic life. “Memphis is the cotton center of the world!” That statement, made in 1959 by Gerald Dearing, a columnist for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, expressed how the city on the Mississippi River served as the throne room of the cotton kingdom. “No city depended more on the white gold that flowed into its warehouses and onto its wharves, and no city embraced cotton as did Memphis.” (Brown 2011)

  7. See http://www.nps.gov/miss/riverfacts.htm.

  8. See http://www.oceanography.lsu.edu/turner.shtm.

  9. See http://instaar.colorado.edu/people/james-w-c-white/.

  10. See http://webserves.org/.

  11. See http://www.ghostnets.com/blog.shtml.

  12. For impacts of Hurricane Sandy on New York City, see http://www.nyc.gov/html/recovery/downloads/pdf/sandy_aar_5.2.13.pdf.

  13. Discussion of New Yorkers' concerns about fracking can be seen at http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/06/18/what-is-the-health-impact-of-fracking/.

  14. Vocalist Aviva Rahmani accompanied on piano by Debra Vanderlinde. The recording can be heard at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irQtqnCuZUE.

  15. That correlation was developed between White and myself for Fish Story, May 2013.

  16. Recording of “Connecting the River Dots” can be found at https://vimeo.com/67578327.

  17. See http://meld.cc.

  18. See http://evelaramee.com/.

  19. See http://www.ruthhardinger.com/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. PO Box 484, Vinalhaven, ME, 04863, USA

    Aviva Rahmani

  2. 214 Riverside Dr., Apartment 614, New York, NY, 10025, USA

    Aviva Rahmani

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  1. Aviva Rahmani
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Correspondence to Aviva Rahmani.

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Rahmani, A. Fish Story Memphis: Memphis is the center of the world. J Environ Stud Sci 4, 176–179 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-013-0150-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-013-0150-z

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