A River Ends as the Ocean: walk the tide out

Astrida Neimanis, Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor & Clare Britton

A River Ends as the Ocean: walk the tide out 20th December and 17th January 2020/21

A River Ends as the Ocean: walk the tide out is a collaboration between Astrida Neimanis (feminist writer and educator at the University of Sydney), Gadigal/Bidgigal/Darug/Yuin Elder and Traditional descendant of the Sydney “Warrane” Coastal region, artist and activist Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor and visual artist Clare Britton.

A River Ends as the Ocean: walk the tide out is a tidal walk, a free public event and a generative creative process conducted in Sydney, Australia as part of the 13th Shanghai Biennale of Art. (Neimanis' book, "Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology" is the theme of the Shanghai Biennale). Our walk will be reciprocated in Shanghai where the tide will be walked in along the Yangtze and Huangpu Rivers.

We are all bodies of water, and as such, we are always dissolving and transforming.

Our walk followed Sydney's Cooks River--or as Aunty Rhonda suggests, Gooliyari-- to its ending, in Botany Bay.

This gesture invites deep contemplation of the river's story. In a time of many endings--lives lost to a pandemic, species lost to climate change, but also ways of life lost to colonialism--what can we learn by slowing down to the rhythm of the river and following it together? Timed to mark the end of the day, the end of the tide, and the end of the year- A river ends as the ocean walk the tide out was a container of time to pay attention to the river and consider endings and new beginnings.

A River Ends as the Ocean: walk the tide out is a part of the 13th Shanghai Biennale “Bodies of Water”. Phrase 2: an ecosystem of alliances, Power Station of Art and supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Printing by Pinch Press,

CONTRIBUTORS TO FBi Canvas, Unframing art and ideas Podcast on Freshwater, Rivers:

https://fbiradio.com/podcast/canvas-fbi/