Introduction: Lifeline, A Water Storytelling Project

Introduction

At the Po River Source/ Crissolo, Italy
Photo: Silvia Peretto

I am working on a new water storytelling project, titled Lifeline. I have decided to share this story and my process as it flows and develops, featuring images, video, sound recordings and introductions to members of the project’s community.
I hope you will join me here and follow along.

I have deep heart connections with two river estuaries, Muhheacanituk/Hudson River, and the Venetian Lagoon, having lived with and collaborated with both intimately. I am currently working on new projects with both of these life-giving waterways.

I will start by telling you about a project that began to take shape after Red Regatta. Given the precarious state of our fresh waterways, I felt compelled to follow the Venetian Lagoon’s waters back to their source.  The Po River, Italy’s longest river, is an ancient and enduring life-force that flows into the Adriatic Sea, just south of the Venetian Lagoon. When my friends and collaborators in Italy shared news of the Po River’s current state, diminished and dying due to climate change and exploitation, I began to envision how I could support the Po itself through the telling of its story. Just a few months ago, in July 2023, I gathered my team for our first research trip to the Po’s source and delta, its beginning and its end. It was a deeply moving and engaging trip that exceeded all expectations. Soon I will share a lot more about that trip! But first, I want to let you know that in this Water Story, the Po River is our guiding ancestral narrator. The Po’s network of braided channels, like lifelines, inspires this weaving together of the river’s story in its own voice with those of its local community, with specific attention given to underrepresented stories. They flow together in strength, beauty and wisdom in order to envision and enact the river’s regeneration. 

Aerial photo. The Po is a braided river, a network of channels that is ever-changing.

The project’s title, Lifeline, makes reference to rivers as our lifelines for survival and to the lifelines inscribed in our hands. Throughout history, hands represent truth, honesty, openness, generosity, healing, wisdom, action, communication. Nelson Mandela said, “It is in your hands to create a better world for all who live in it.” 

The lifelines written in our palms symbolize past, present and future. Ancestors mapped the landscapes of rivers and mountains in our palms in relationship to the cosmos.

Lifeline, 2023.
Collage of a found aerial map of the Po River juxtaposed with a map I made using a creased photograph of my palm.

In Italian, the verb tramandare, “to pass between hands,” is frequently used when locals share stories about the Po.  This is a guiding concept of the project. What will we choose to pass along, from hand to hand?

I look forward to passing these water stories along to you.
I hope you will subscribe and share this with those who may be interested!

Thank you!

MM

A short preliminary video made during our research trip in the Po Delta Unesco Biosphere in July 2023 by my collaborator and project videographer Giovanni Pellegrini.