Collins and Goto with Lakshmi and Hefele et al
During the 3R2N: River Dialogues we worked from the premise that human values arise from the sum of lived experience and concept-informed perception. On the experience side, we developed an outreach program and a series of public River Dialogues, in which we took people out on the rivers. It was our hypothesis that the River Dialogues had the potential to reconfigure the aesthetic perception of the rivers. The view from any one of the rivers reveals a striking recovery of the natural landscape at the level of the floodplain and on the surrounding steep slopes that line the river valleys, while the view from the roads adjacent to the rivers still presents a predominantly post-industrial, architectonic aesthetic that separates the viewer from the river. The principle of this aspect of the project was that value and care are generated in direct relationship to experience, perception, and the potential for common interest. On the concept side, we decided we would stress ideas tied to the scientific field reports and innovative maps
developed by experts during the project. These concepts when coupled with “on the water” experiences might result in new values.
Excerpted from: Collins, T. (2010) 3 Rivers 2nd Nature 2000-2005, Water, Land & Dialogue. In
Carney, L.S., And Pageot, E-A, In a special issue on Landscape, Cultural Spaces, Ecology. RACAR,
Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review, Vol 35 Issue 3. Arnprior, ON: Canada Universities Art
Association of Canada.