There Must Be Other Names for the River is a music composition for singers and instrumentalists to embody streamflow data from six points along the Rio Grande. In this form it is a web-based sound installation and community space engaging the history, present, and potential futures of the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reporter Laura Paskus wrote, “In early April, when the Middle Rio Grande should have been rushing with snowmelt, New Mexico\u2019s largest river dried. It started through Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, spreading to more than 20 miles by now. The Albuquerque stretch may dry come June or July, which would mean some 120 miles dry altogether this summer … To see this happening in spring is shocking. But we shouldn\u2019t be surprised. We knew this could happen.” (From Paskus’ article “A dry Rio Grande in Springtime isn’t normal. but it will be.<\/a>“) That was in 2018. In 2020, the same thing happened. Drought is also expected for the summer of 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, climate change and extractive projects along the river are contributing to greater threat of drought as snowpack is decreasing, evaporation is increasing, and monsoons are less common. The weaponization of the river as a border is a threat to lives on all sides. We too often see the river as a division rather than an invitation for unification. During the pandemic, we’ve experienced a social isolation which has led many of us living near the river to find an embrace in the shared bounty and responsibility of the these keystone ecosystems. The river connects us as it flows through these lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n To bring awareness to these critical issues, Marisa Demarco, Dylan McLaughlin, and Jessica Zeglin have developed a web-based sound installation and gathering space for visitors to listen to the voices of the river and contribute their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This sound installation guides visitors along the length of the Rio Grande where they hear the songs of singers emerging from points along its 1,800 mile length. Each singer works from a graphic score representing nearly 50 years of streamflow data at a specific point along the river. Singing from this historical reference as well as their personal relationships, hopes and fears for the river, the singers\u2014Monica Demarco, Ryan Dennison, Kenneth Cornell, Antonia Montoya, Mauro Woody and Marya Errin Jones\u2014envision and embody possibilities for the river into the future, further than scientific studies currently predict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accompanying the installation is Tributaries, a community space where visitors can contribute their own response to the streamflow data. Tributaries consists of stories, songs and retellings of the memories and hopes for the future of the Rio Grande. Tributaries recognizes our collective investment in the river and provides a virtual meeting point for neighbors in a time of physical distancing, to amplify and share the importance of the river we all feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Together, this sound installation and community space asks us to actively consider and contribute to the trajectory of this lifeline in the desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This piece was inspired by the environmental reporting of Laura Paskus. In November 2020, Laura talks to the artists in a drying Rio Grande riverbed about what is happening with the river today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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