The “Exist, Flourish, Evolve” art show’s focus on Rights of Nature and the Great Lakes will be held at The Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art

“When I first met Andrea Bowers, the artist doing this exhibition, I had no idea about the power of art in changing culture and how that can impact the laws we live under. I have spent the past 12 years of my life focused on helping communities pass laws that protect nature. After collaborating with Andrea, I realize that art can influence how people individually connect to nature and that can then lead to laws that reflect this connection collectively. Yes, laws can change culture, but culture through art can also change the law. Andrea and this project have helped me and CELDF evolve in our journey to help people and communities moving forward to protect the environment and ecosystems they call home.”

 --Tish O’Dell, Community Organizer CELDF (Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund)

WT: Great to connect with you again Tish. Just briefly for our viewers who do not know you, please tell us about CELDF.

O’Dell: Thank you for your continuing coverage of our mission to build sustainable communities by assisting people to assert their right to local self-government and the rights of nature.

CELDF began as a traditional public interest law firm seeking to protect the environment. Along the way, we encountered barriers put in place by both government and corporations. Such barriers included corporate constitutional “rights” and the unilateral preemptive authority of state government – both of which are used to override community decision making and local democracy.

Today, through grassroots organizing, public education and outreach, and legal assistance, nearly 200 municipalities across the U.S. have advanced CELDF-drafted laws to establish rights for ecosystems, human rights to water, a live-able climate, as well as to ban practices including fracking, factory farming, sewage sludging of farmland and water privatization.

WT: Now your outreach and education are expanding through new avenues. Tell us more about your collaboration with Andrea Bowers.

O’Dell: LA-based artist Andrea Bowers bears witness in her work, drawing attention to and inspiring movement around the most urgent issues of our time.

Bowers was raised in the small town of Huron, Ohio and spent her childhood on the shores of Lake Erie, connecting to the lake itself like a member of her family to be cared for, cherished, and protected. Yet, Lake Erie and its watershed are abused and endangered by corporate practices such as contaminant dumping, toxic runoff from industrial farming, and the introduction of non-native invasive species.

Exist, Flourish, Evolve demands justice for the Great Lakes, urging us to prioritize the preservation of our natural ecology.

WT: This exhibit is a multi-media presentation. Can you give our viewers a glimpse of what to expect in expanding their environmental consciousness at this Exist, Flourish, Evolve event?

O’Dell: Within the Cleveland Museum gallery, a timeline connects Bowers’s new and recent artworks with historical facts and archival materials using two catastrophic climate events as bookends to Bowers’s life thus far: the 1969 fire on the Lake Erie-connected Cuyahoga River (a result of oil slicks covering the water) and the massive 2014 algae bloom that blanketed Lake Erie and invaded Toledo’s water systems, preventing residents from using tap water.

This collaborative multimedia campaign between Andrea and CELDF builds awareness and action around the dangers facing Lake Erie and all the Great Lakes ecosystems.

It features a monumental neon sculpture installed on a waterfront balcony of the Great Lakes Science Center; a documentary investigating the impact of factory farming on Lake Erie’s ecosystem; and a presentation in moCa’s Lewis Gallery that includes a newly-created drawing of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, first-of-its-kind legislation protecting an entire US ecosystem that is part of the global Rights of Nature Movement.

WT: What would you like to encourage our viewers to think about regarding this exhibition?

O’Dell: I would like us all to recognize that the Right Relationship with Lake Erie, the Great Lakes and nature, is going to take more than laws. It is going to require a cultural shift in each one of us to understand that we are nature.

We are but one species of thousands on this amazing Earth. If our water, air, soil and food are unhealthy, we will also be unhealthy.

Nature is not simply “property” to be owned and exploited for some human benefit and profit. We need to change our mindset and then help the people around us to understand that we are not separate and superior to nature. Instead, we need to connect to the physical place and ecosystems that give us life, our community. When we do this and we can see and appreciate how much we are part of nature, then maybe we will love nature enough to protect her. Maybe then we won’t even need laws to instruct us not to poison ourselves.

WT: Anything else?

O’Dell: I would encourage everyone who can to try and come to the exhibit to experience it for themselves. The art’s message is moving and powerful. It will inspire people to be honest and truthful with their role in our current culture.

Exist Flourish Evolve Feb 2-May 26, 2024, in Cleveland Ohio