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I am @residenciacorazon in part to explore the role and function of urban ecology within a planned development that has given the city the nickname “city of linden trees.” I am really grateful to have been introduced to artist/curator Rafael Santos on Wednesday. Through our conversation about our art practices and interests I learned about the 2013 flood which submerged most of La Plata reveling the vulnerability of this planned city. _ Last year when I was digging through boxes at the Toronto Archives looking for information on the Etobicoke Creek ravine I learned about the impacts of the 1954 Hurricane Hazel which in much the same way affected Toronto causing millions in damage and killing dozens of people. What is interesting is that difference in response by each of these cities to such an event, where Toronto decided to reverse/hold development and maintain the areas most affected as natural as possible and in La Plata the city continued with human infrastructure to control water flow (based on my ongoing research). _ The photos here are part of my first expedition in looking at the local waterworks and thinking about how/if this work can also speak to the “shifting baseline syndrome”* I recently learned about. I am looking for the forgotten rivers, imagining what La Plata might be like if it “loosened up” its structure to let nature in without the rigid structure. _ * "shifting baseline syndrome” relates to how our perception of what a healthy ecosystem baseline looks like changes with time, "a diminished resource is passed on to a new generation for whom it becomes, in turn, their original state." . . . #ecology #sbs #urbanplanning #waterworks #undergroundriver #laplata #artresidency #wip #artresearch #urbanecology #natureaspaceofflows #nature #summer #heat #torontoartist #polskiartysta #torontoarchives

A post shared by Andrzej Tarasiuk (@split_into_one) on Feb 6, 2020 at 9:16pm PST