Building a city-wide network of water stewardship, artistic engagement, and mutual learning: Milwaukee’s WaterMarks project

Keywords: water stewardship, art, community, learning
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The WaterMarks project promotes stewardship of Milwaukee’s water system through unique programming led by artists in collaboration with scientists and community members. The project aims to foster stewardship through multi-directional informal learning about the city’s water resources and challenges, and a central premise is that new kinds of learning and practice can be fostered by putting artistic, scientific, and community perspectives in creative, collaborative conversation with each other. To investigate this premise, we are conducting ongoing qualitative research on a series of neighborhood walks led by an artist, a scientist, and a community leader, through both post-walk focus groups or interviews and invitations to draw what they are learning on “postcards” designed for the walk. Our larger project team is also in the process of creating an “adaptable guide” designed both to sustain the project in Milwaukee and to provide guidance for other cities seeking to create similar projects. We reflect on several key lessons of this work in progress, including the simple observation that mutual learning and network-building among artistic, scientific, and community perspectives does not happen automatically. Instead, it requires combining the patience of slow relationship-building—in urban neighborhoods notable for their vast differences—with the willingness to experiment iteratively with program design. Among other things, this has meant reimagining and recrafting the role of our own research team in the development of the project.