Starting Conversations: Water, Community and Creativity
Channel: New Mexico Humanities Council
Date: 2021-04-21

In partnership with The Paseo Project, the New Mexico Humanities Council is pleased to celebrate the publication of Acequia Aqui: Water, Community, and Creativity with this Starting Conversations. For this discussion, we are joined by two contributing writers, Miguel Santistevan and Sylvia Rodriguez, who address the urgent topics of acequias in New Mexico, their histories, and their futures. 
The history of acequias in New Mexico weaves a rich tapestry of multicultural practices that illustrate human migration, resilience, and connection to the land and water. The wisdom inherent in the historic acequias continue to tell these stories in the communities of New Mexico, but they have been at risk of disappearance in recent years as a result of climate change, increased real estate development, natural resource extraction and more. Acequia Aqui is an artistic and community driven project that aims to give voice to the historic acequias of Taos to illuminate the importance of this vital resource and cultural wellspring. 

Through this panel, we hope to illuminate the artistic interventions that concentrate on themes of placemaking and keeping; storytelling and poetry; and technology and craft. These themes and the work of the individual artists give a framework to help us think through our cultural relationship to these life-giving waterways. 

Helpful resources: 
More on The Paseo Project: http://www.paseoproject.org
More on the Acequia Aqui project: https://paseoproject.org/acequia-aqui/
Digital version of Acequia Aqui booklet: https://issuu.com/paseoproject/docs/pp_acequiaqui_3_compositecatalog_digitaldistr_issu
The Paseo Project's audio only version of the booklet: https://soundcloud.com/user-239834131

The New Mexico Humanities Councils is a non-profit dedicated to exploring who we are, who we were and who we wish to be.