With most of Arizona experiencing severe drought, an exhibit at Northern Arizona University is seeking to map the Grand Canyon state’s water crisis.
The collection of artwork and informative panels pose the question: How can people in Arizona work toward water security?
“The idea is to see how can we live in this landscape, how our ancestors lived in this landscape in productive ways,” says Lucero Radonic, an environmental anthropologist and professor at NAU who’s been working on the exhibit, titled “Our Water: Innovations and Collaborations in Arizona.”
It’s a collaboration between NAU, Arizona State University and a water insecurity initiative funded by the governor’s office that visualizes relationships with water through art made by people across the Colorado plateau.
It depicts ancestral Tohono O’odham irrigation systems and the lack of piped-in water to Navajo, Hopi and U.S.-Mexico border communities.
The exhibit looks at water use in artificial intelligence, and how people can make smart choices when using AI given its ecological footprint.
And it features a panel highlighting a collaboration between residents, nonprofits and the state of Arizona in their effort to monitor and restore the Rio de Flag, an ephemeral creek which only flows seasonally through Flagstaff.
“How can we work with others to advance water security, not only for humans, but also for non-humans?” Radonic says. “That's what I hope that people will get, that they will learn about all of the challenges around water in the region, but that hopefully they would walk out inspired.”
She says when policymakers and academics talk about water in Arizona, it’s often a dire conversation.
“We are facing a multi-decade drought, we have many, many households that do not have access to safe drinking water,” Radonic says. “We are still in ongoing negotiations around the Colorado River, so it can be very depressing. My hope is that as people walk here, they can see the different ways in which actors collaborate with each other in order to move our communities towards water security.”
Those collaborations will continue to be on display at the NAU School of Communications gallery until June 19. It’s open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
