Invigorate the Common Well

Invigorate the Common Well
is an Initiative:

To inspire gratitude for Water, one of the most precious gifts of life.

To listen to the teachings of water toward the interconnectedness of all life, as it tunes our hearts and minds towards the value of “THE COMMONS”, a founding principal of the USA.

To invest our financial and imaginative resources towards “THE COMMONS” - the non-partisan, collective assurance of healthy water for all - with a faith that sustainable, healthy systems are possible within urban and rural settings.

To connect our drinking water, and all our local water practices to the Mississippi River Watershed,-- to understand that our bodies, our individual practices, are literally part of the Mississippi Watershed.

To connect our local drinking water experience with the large issues facing global water quality, consumption, conservation, and ownership - that the Mississippi Watershed connects with all the Water in the world.

To conduct public art/ecology residencies throughout the region to invigorate public wells (drinking fountains) as places of meeting, of physical and spiritual sustenance while educating and engaging the public in major local and global water concerns.

To discourage the proliferation of plastic water bottles mounting up in land fills of the world.

To encourage the collective power of individual citizens toward water stewardship in everyday practices, enacting positive change upon the problems created by the accumulation of the individual actions.

MANY THANKS TO OUR PROJECT ADVISORS:

• Annika M. Bankston, P.E., Minneapolis Water Works
• Gemma Bulos, International Water Networker
• Tara Chadwick, Danza Mexica Cuauhtémoc of Minnesota
• Whitney Clark, Friends of the Mississippi River
• Doug Freeman, Minnesota Arts and Ecology Alliance
• Susan Gust, GRASS ROUTES of U of M
• City of Mpls Public Health Advisory Committee
• Neal Hines, Civil Engineer Dept. of Limnology, Hydrology
• Seitu Jones, Advisor of Community and Public Spaces
• Jim Koplin, Researcher, Environmental Activist
• Satish Kumar, Resurgence Magazine,
  Schumacher College
• Ken Meter, Director of Crossroads Research
• Mark Muller, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
• Anil Naidoo, Council of Canadians
• Patrick Nunnally,Mississippi River Initiative
• Megan O’Hara,MN Arts and Ecology Alliance
• MaryLynn Pulscher,
  Minneapolis Parks and Recreation
• April Rust, Project WET
• Akhmiri Sekhr-Ra,
  Powderhorn Phillips Cultural Wellness Center
• John G. Shepard, Center for Global
  Environmental Education, Hamline University
• Stew Thornley, Minnesota Department of Health,
  Drinking Water Protection
• Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Past Episodes:

Episode 3 - July 26, 2008
Decorate the Well in Gratitude

To dedicate the renewed drinking fountain in our theater's lobby with a day long water festival.

Episode 2 - Feb-Mar, 2008
Beneath the Surface

Focused on Water quality and our local Water systems.

Episode 1 - March, 2007
Come to the Well

Focused on Water  quantity, consumption, and "ownership".

ON THE COMMONS

Understanding the presence of the commons in our world makes it possible to imagine social change taking place in new ways. We rise together to claim our inheritance – of nature, culture and community. In so doing; we recognize our responsibility to safeguard this inheritance for future generations.

Here in Minnesota, at the headwaters of the Mississippi, the opportunity for leadership in re-defining our relationship to water is ripe and critical. How we share our water today with those who live downstream has ripple effects around the globe.

In our collaboration
with In the Heart of the Beast, On the Commons celebrates the role of art and culture in making the commons tangible, concrete and visible. We thank In the Heart of the Beast for the privilege of working together to bring public attention to water as a commons. Across the U.S. On the Commons encourages deeper public knowledge and interest in the significance of the commons in all of our lives. You can find out more about us at: onthecommons.org.

— Rachel Breen,
On the Commons