EDGELANDS

Through regional packraft and bicycle journeys within the Mississippi River watershed within a 100-mile radius of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area, Edgelands explores the stories, histories, and relationships of the people who live here.

Director’s statement

By my definition, Edgelands are fugitive refuges situated along the edges of normative settler-colonial; social, physical and emotional infrastructure.

The vacant lot with burr oak and black raspberries where old mattresses and tires are abandoned. Coyotes in the dog park, queer celebration and festival, bodies living with terminal illness and disability, sandhill cranes resting in the wetland beneath the flight path. Edgelands are places where something “else” is happening, where life is persisting despite the encroachments of the dominant system, physical, emotional and geographical. 

As we face climate injustice and work to dismantle systemic racism, Edgelands are crucial spaces because they model the wisdom of reciprocity and inter-being. They remind us that we do not need to go half way across the world to have a spiritual awakening. This myth about seeking is a facet of the settler colonial enterprise. The truth that all life is linked through relationship is scattered everywhere. A boulder, tree or river in Yosemite is not any more wise than a boulder, tree or river in the city. It is not where we go, but how we relate to where we are.    

Edgelands is an episodic series looking closely at our deep and diverse  relationships to earth, while zooming out to contextualize the history and complexity of those connections. Earth manifests life through relationship and in alignment with that truth, the stories of Edgelands have emerged throughout a series of regional adventures, told by the voices of my friends and community members. Many of whom I work with at the intersection of climate justice, racial justice and other aspects of cultural repair.

Policy alone will never solve the deeper cultural struggles we currently face, nor will it heal us. Edgelands is an invitation to look elsewhere, to glimpse our capacity for reciprocity and resilience in the unkept spaces which are often right here, just under our nose. On our home ground, within our existing networks of community. Healing does not start in the middle. It begins at the edges and gradually moves towards the center. We all overlap. 

Special thanks to our current partners: Osprey Packs, Alpacka Raft, Wild Flower Bikes, Big Agnes, Kokatat, Bending Branches / Aqua Bound, Cedaero and Inter-Fluve.

Help us realize Episode 1

If you are an organization, brand, or individual interested in sponsoring or financially contributing to the completion of Edgelands, we’d love to hear from you. We appreciate your support.