CEGU

Franke Institute for the Humanities | 1670 meters from Lake Michigan

“Geography is the villain” is a surprising way to kick off a CEGU symposium, considering that the “G” in CEGU stands for geography, and yet it made sense after Dilip da Cunha’s beautifully rendered and comprehensive presentation on wetness-oriented thinking. Yes, wetness. On Thursday evening (10/17), the University of Pennsylvania professor, architect, and planner made the argument that we think of ourselves as living on land, rather than in wetness, despite being perpetually surrounded and inhabited by water (in one form or another). Much of this theory is drawn from his newest book, The Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s Eye and Ganga’s Descent. According to da Cunha, land-based thinking is about divisions: dividing the Earth from its occupants through surfaces, dividing the land from the water with lines, dividing the water cycle and declaring only one phase normal, and so on. It’s about creating categories of control, and thereby controlling people, which is why Professor da Cunha calls geography a tool of colonization.

After being told that perhaps rivers don’t exist, Rachel Havrelock (professor and director of Freshwater Labs at the University of Illinois at Chicago) had the arduous task of summarizing many of the ecopolitical issues that the Chicago River currently faces. One of the most compelling arguments she posited centered around the Giant Carp, an invasive species introduced into the Mississippi River in the 1970s to help clean ponds. Havrelock argued that the racially charged language used in media coverage of the fish (known as “Asian carp” until 2022) contributed to the federal government’s decision to treat the species as akin to an “immigration” problem, drafting a billion-dollar plan to build underwater walls and barriers designed to keep the carp away from the Great Lakes. This response is far from the most efficient solution to the carp question and is less pressing than other issues currently facing our waterway, such as our antiquated combined sewer system.

We already have a wall separating the river from Lake Michigan: the lock built in 1900 that reversed the flow of the Chicago River. This project, resulting in the world’s only reversed river, was meant to keep wastewater away from drinking water, pulled from the giant water cribs way out on the Lake. However, periods of heavy rain can overload our municipal drainage system and force excess water back into the Lake, exacting a form of “sewer’s revenge,” as Havrelock phrased it.

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North Shore Marine LLC | 7280 m from Lake Michigan

With thoughts of sewers and wetness rattling around, it was time to board the boat. This floating workshop was to set sail Friday morning, October 18^th, from the North Branch, just past Goose Island. When a program is described as a “pedagogical counter-cruise,” you wonder what kind of transportation you’re about to commit your life to: a sailboat? kayaks? a bunch of driftwood lashed together? But no, we boarded a normal boat at North Shore Marine LLC, complete with lifejackets and all.

After brief introductions, the goal of the workshop was revealed to us by its fountainhead, UChicago’s Jennifer Scappettone. Over the course of a few hours, we were going to prove that science, policy, and art could not only be blended holistically, but should and must be combined to understand the past, present, and future of urban waterways. Sprinkle in a bit of embodied practice and movement improv, and you end up with roughly thirty adults trying to figure out how to best represent a core sampling augur with their bodies, as we drifted past waste sites, grain silos, and skyscrapers. At the old People’s Gas Plant, near Willow Street, people stretched, danced, and swayed as counter-cartographer Lize Mogel talked us through the process of monitoring an which involves taking core samples from 22 feet below the surface. That’s deep enough to reach coal and glacial clay. And we learned that the monitoring of the river has paid off: while only five fish species could survive in the Chicago River in the 1950s, today seventy-five species call the river home. Definitely a fact worth dancing for.

Once everyone had settled back down, Rebecca Snedeker began navigating us through a collective writing exercise to help us think about water via a different medium. Throughout our voyage, Snedeker, an award-winning New Orleans-based filmmaker/storyteller, encouraged us to engage with concepts like river, remnant, vessel, and future, resulting in a choral recitation that will be synced to a documentary video of the cruise.

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Junction of the Chicago River | 2600 m from Lake Michigan

As we punted down the North Branch of the river, we slowly saw the bank’s landscape change. Trailing tree branches spilling orange and red leaves into the water gave way to smooth metal railings, as we neared the junction of the Chicago River. This floating symposium was part one of a two-part, binational symposium, meant to put Chicagoan and Parisian waterways in conversation with each other. Many of the workshop participants hailed from France, either as researchers with the CRNS’ new outpost at the University of Chicago, or with the Villa Albertine and the French Consulate. As we approached the river’s junction, I met the group of French researchers who had claimed the best seats on the bow of the boat.

“It’s nice that there seems to be more of a connection now,” mused Axelle Moleur, with the Villa Albertine. We had been talking about the nineteenth-century cultural and architectural exchanges between the two cities, and I asked why there seemed to be a revival of Paris-Chicago relations in the past few decades. “Paris’ position in the world has changed,” Moleur replied, “I think we’re more interested in our shared architectural heritage now.”

To that end, the Villa Albertine has sponsored numerous cultural events that bridge the Franco-American consciousness since their establishment in Chicago in 2015. This includes the Opening Passages photo exposition in the Chicago Cultural Center that was on display this year, as well as an earlier symposium that brought together architects like Studio Gang and the Civic Projects team with city administrators such as the Vice-Mayor of Paris and the Deputy Commissioner of Chicago.

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Main branch | 1315 m from Lake Michigan

As we bobbed by the CAC, Austin Happel took the mic. Happel is a research biologist at the Shedd Aquarium, who, even on a boat filled with poets, artists, and humanities researchers, managed to tell one of the most engaging stories of the whole symposium. He regaled us with a tale of a single walleye fish, who migrated from the North Branch to downtown, to hang out by the Trump tower when the weather cooled. As Becky Lyons from Friends of the Chicago River clarified, t, but rather because the Trump tower has repeatedly violated Chicago laws concerning water released back into the river after being used for building heating and cooling purposes.

After the weather warmed, the fish migrated out into Lake Michigan, which meant it had to cross through the lock. In fact, this is the first study of fish migration in a backwards river system, the first to study transfer across a portal into a different water system. Our walleye eventually got bored of the Lake, however, and crossed back into the river, heading downstream to hang out near Bubbly Creek. We followed.

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Canal Origins Park | 9145 m from Lake Michigan

The South Branch of the river still feels industrial. Piles of gravel and old warehouses provide the backdrop, but what is most noticeable is the incredibly acrid scent pervading the air, an odor complicated to convey through writing. Ignoring the stench, Bubbly Creek’s sordid past is no longer visible today. Animal carcasses have been replaced with hydroponic beds, and flaming garbage has been swapped for anglers shouting their support for the Harris-Walz presidential ticket from shore. Despite the pleasant nature of Bubbly Creek today, however, Phil Nicodemus of Urban Rivers (who had also helped coordinate the activity at the People’s Gas Superfund Site) said that core samples taken from the river still contain undigested hooves and fur. This unsettling image served as a reminder of the historical power of wetness, able to preserve history deep below the surface on which we travelled.

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Ping Tom Memorial Park | 5800 m from Lake Michigan

We waved goodbye to our trusty vessel as we disembarked at Ping Tom Memorial Park, in Chinatown. Besides the gaggle of teens excitedly preparing for a K-Pop convention, the park was fairly empty, and the sun cut strongly through the surprisingly still air. We gathered on the expanse of grass that looks north towards the skyline, ready to be guided in a listening exercise by sound artist Norman Long.

Long is a tall, calm fellow who has clearly listened closer to the rhythms of the world than most people ever will. Standing in a large circle on the grass, he guided us through a controlled listening exercise. “To train your ears, you need to listen to the closest sound. And the closest sound isn’t always the loudest sound,” he said, well-timed with the ringing of a pile driver from a nearby construction site. It’s amazing how well our ears can distinguish distance when we pay attention: I heard everything from the slight rasp of a breeze across my ear canal, to the periodic rumble of the cars on both I-90 and I-55, despite the industrial clang of the pile driver disrupting the afternoon. After the hullabaloo of the boat, it was a much-needed calibration.

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Chicago Maritime Museum | 10460 m from Lake Michigan

We moved from Ping Tom Park to the Chicago Maritime Museum, located in the basement of the incredible Bridgeport Art Center. Pooling together in the museum, we reflected on the whole workshop.

“We’re still vibrating,” julie ezelle patton (award-winning Cleveland and New York-based poet) started us off, referring to more than just our readjustment to solid surfaces.

“What I noticed,” said Dilip da Cunha, “is that the Chicago River has no edge. There are pipes and openings all along the side that carry the water elsewhere.”

Rachel Havrelock agreed: “When we get off the boat, we carry the river with us.”

Thoughts flowed around the circle, ranging from “seepage is interesting” to musings on our “hatred of mud,” to a very well-articulated concern that if we break down delineations and boundaries, what happens to individuality?

patton made the last splash: “This is the most successful conference I’ve ever been to.”

And a few more proofs of concept were still to come. Austin Happel and Norman Long co-presented a piece of sound art that Long created with fish movement data supplied by Shedd researchers. By sonically digitizing the locational data of largemouth bass, Long was able to create a haunting, aural experience that—like the listening exercise at the park—had to be enjoyed eyes closed.

After much-deserved applause, julie ezelle patton led us in the final activity, which proved that we carried the river in our bodies. “I’ll conduct,” julie said, “and you all each make a sound that represents the river.” With a wave of their arms, a cacophony of aquatic sounds erupted. I heard some chs-chs-chs that may have been crickets or waterbugs, some really good glubs-glubs, and a few gentle whooshes that imitated the wind rustling autumnal leaves trailing into the river. julie went around amplifying or cutting certain sounds by gesturing at the spontaneous musician. Whirling around the circle, completely in their element, julie managed to shape our collective sound into something that wasn’t quite a river, and wasn’t quite a song, but perhaps managed to be something meaningful, nonetheless.

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Conclusion | 0 m from wetness

With the final wave of their arms, the workshop was over, and we flowed out towards Bubbly Creek. Did we manage to conceive of a new imaginary? One where art, policy, and science are all integrated into our relationship with urban waterways? I don’t think I’m qualified to make that call, but I do know that I can’t look at the Chicago River the same way I did before. If we can understand rivers as being more than the bodies they’ve been channeled into, perhaps there’s hope for a true interdisciplinary imaginary after all.

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This short narrative cannot possibly fathom the depths of effort and involvement that went into creating this symposium. The Geopoetics of Urban Rivers was the brainchild of UChicago professor of English, creative writing, Romance languages & literatures, and CEGU, Jennifer Scappettone, assisted by the immense support of CEGU faculty Sabina Shaikh and Carlo Diaz. The symposium was made possible with support from the International Institute of Research in Paris, UChicago Global, the University of Chicago English Department, CNRS Humanities Plus International Research Laboratory, the Université Gustave Eiffel, and the Franke Institute for the Humanities. Thank you.