The water where we live
A Collaborative Project between A House Unbuilt and Brown’s Creek Watershed District
A House Unbuilt Art & Water Community Space
321 Main Street S, (second floor)
January 24 – April 18, 2025
M-F: 10am-3pm
RECEPTION
March 6, 4-7pm
A 2023 Supreme Court decision revoked the Clean Water Act’s power to protect approximately two-thirds of the nation’s wetlands and millions of miles of rain-fed streams. Many states don’t have their own legal protections for these waters. In states with strong laws, polluting industries are taking action to weaken them.
Through the work of watershed districts, conservation management, citizen advocacy, and creativity we can raise awareness about the public’s role in maintaining clean water and how we pursue that at higher levels of municipal and state government. To that end, The Water Where We Live—a collaboration between A House Unbuilt and Brown’s Creek Watershed District—will amplify the hidden stories living in our watershed as well as the ways we can protect the water that flows there.
Opening January 24, 2025, A House Unbuilt’s Art & Water Space in Downtown Stillwater will host a unique exhibition featuring area artists. A selection of 13 works on paper will be created in response to stories and descriptions of the unique organisms living in the watershed, accompanied by a “first person” narrative of the organisms’ experiences moving through Brown’s Creek. The Art & Water Space will featured the artist’s responses as well as blown up versions of Washington County Conservation District’s Water Pollution 101 info cards featuring the impacts of bacteria, phosphorus, nitrogen, chloride, mercury, and sediment on our waterways and watersheds. Additionally, in the open area of the Art & Water Space, Artistic Director Victoria Bradford Styrbicki and other volunteers will host a “water bar,” featuring a tasting of regional drinking water sources, as an activity to spur awareness of our impacts on our waterways.
According to a March 2024 GALLUP poll, pollution of drinking water tops environmental worries in the US. The National Wildlife Federation suggests our best approach as advocates of waterways is to advance a message of clean drinking water, which will simultaneously amplify the other concerns that people are apparently less worried about, such as pollution of waterbodies, contamination of soil and water by toxic waste, climate change, air pollution, loss of rain forests, and extinction of plants and animals. Through this immersive installation and project collaboration, we can have an impact on clean water in our community, raising awareness and changing behavior.
The Reception showcasing the artworks on March 6, 2025, 4-7pm will also feature Angie Hong as a guest speaker, highlighting her new book Exploring the St. Croix River Valley: Adventures on and off the Water. The exhibit will be on display for a 3-month period in the Art & Water Space: January 24 – April 18, 2025, Monday-Friday, 10am-3:00pm and by appointment. As mentioned before, together in partnership with BCWD leadership, we will seek out future exhibition opportunities for this project, solicit groups to tour the space, and explore other applications for these creative materials within the Watershed.