Water Matters Symposium

The Place of Water in the World: Ritual, Beauty, and the Environment

Program of Events

Thursday, March 31
7:00 pm, Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Mary Miss, artist
"The Art of Engagement." A presentation by a public artist whose works have often focused on water.

Friday, April 1, 2005
9:00 - 9:30 am, Hinchcliff Reception Hall, Gamble Lobby, Art Building
Continental Breakfast/Welcome and Opening Remarks; Penny Gill, acting dean of faculty and Mary Lyon Professor of Humanities, professor of politics, Mount Holyoke College.

9:30 - 11:00 am, Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Public Conversations/Roundtable:
Sites of Water I: Transforming Community Landscapes
Panelists from the fields of art, landscape design, and urban ecology discuss how they use the biological and metaphysical properties of water to restore ecosystems and reclaim public imagination. Rutherford Platt, geographer, land use lawyer, and director, Ecological Cities Project, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Mary V. Rickel Pelletier, innovative urban landscape design, Hartford, Connecticut; Jackie Brookner, ecological artist, New York City.
Moderator: Ann Rosenthal, visiting artist in studio art, Mount Holyoke College.

11:00 – 11:15 am, Hinchcliff Reception Hall, Gamble Lobby, Art Building
Break

11:15 am - noon, Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Roundtable discussion continues

Noon – 1:30 pm
Lunch

1:30 - 4:00 pm, Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Public Conversations/Roundtable:
Sites of Water II: The Political, Social, and Cultural Dimensions of the World's Rivers
This discussion, cosponsored by the Center for Global Initiatives, explores the scientific properties, connectivity, political meaning, and spiritual significance of water in culture with a specific focus on regional rivers such as the Ganga (Ganges), the Yangtze, and the Nile. Speakers include: J. Ramachandran, founder and chief executive officer, GangaGen Biotechnologies, Inc.; Steven Benson, associate professor, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan; Dai Qing, journalist and activist; Kelly Alley, associate professor of anthropology, Auburn University, Alabama; Gay Tischbirek, director of International Relations EPF Ecole d'Ingenieurs, Sceaux, France, and coordinator, Nile Countries Hydro Management Project and Girma Kebbede, professor of geography and earth and the environment, Mount Holyoke College.
Moderator: Julia Jean, visiting assistant professor of anthropology, Mount Holyoke College.

4:00 – 4:15 pm, Hinchcliff Reception Hall, Gamble Lobby, Art Building
Break

4:30 – 6:00 pm, Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Keynote: Going with the Flow: Water and Alternative Cinema
Scott MacDonald, filmmaker, professor of film at Bard College and author of The Garden in the Machine: A Field Guide to Independent Films about Place, presents a program of cine-meditations on water, and on the issue of water, produced by filmmakers working outside the commercial industry. Works to be screened include Ralph Steiner's H20 (1929), Chick Strand's Kristallnacht (1979), Stan Brakhage's Commingled Containers (1997), Peter Hutton's Study of a River (1996), and Andrej Zdravic's Riverglass: A River Ballet in Four Seasons (1997).
Moderator: Thomas E. Wartenberg, professor of philosophy and Chair of philosophy department, Mount Holyoke College.

6:00 - 8:00 pm
Dinner

8:00 – 10:00 pm, Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Film Screening
13 Lakes (2004)
This film focuses on thirteen large American lakes and their geographical and historical relationship to the landscape. A discussion with the filmmaker, James Benning, will follow screening.

Saturday, April 2, 2005
9:00 - 10:30 am, Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Sites of Water III: Surface Tension
What lies beneath the surface of water? How is water both a membrane and barrier? How does water embody life? How does life emerge from water? Rosamond Purcell, artist, and Arno Rafael Minkkinen, photographer and professor of photography, art, and copy at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, engage questions on the history of creatures that hover between land and water and the role water has on visual imagination. Romeo Melloni, composer,
offers an original musical score to enrich the conversation. Moderator: Lauret Savoy, professor of geology, earth and environment, and incoming director, Center for the Environment, Mount Holyoke College.

10:30 - 11:00 am, Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Closing Remarks

Special Alumnae Events
11:00 am – noon, Morrison Room, Willits-Hallowell Conference Center
Women in Public Life Forum: Women and Water
The theme of this year’s annual Women in Public Life Forum is the meaning of women and water examined through the work of notable alumnae in various fields, including Dr. Mary Scranton '72, professor, Marine Sciences Institute, Stony Brook University and Margaret Van Deusen '76, deputy director and general counsel, Charles River Watershed Association, Waltham, MA. Dr. Susan Beers Betzer '65, president of the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association, gives opening remarks.

11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts Lounge, Center for Global Initiatives Lounge, Porter Hall
Networking Workshop for Speakers
An opportunity for symposium participants, speakers, and local community members to exchange ideas and information.

Noon – 1:00 pm, Willits-Hallowell Conference Center
Lunch with Alumnae

1:00 – 1:30 pm
Break

1:30 – 3:30 pm,
Alumnae Conference/Series of Faculty Workshops

Workshop I: “Oil and Water Don't Mix: Geopolitics, Energy, and the Environment” Stephen Jones, professor of Russian and Eurasian studies, Mount Holyoke College (305, Kendade)
Workshop II: "From Landscape Art to Ecoart" Ann Rosenthal, visiting artist in studio art, Mount Holyoke College. An overview of artists' responses to the environment, from representing landscapes to collaborating with living systems. Workshop attendees will create a hands-on ecoart project. (Studio Classroom, Central Services)
Workshop III: “Water Sites on Campus: A Guided Tour”
Thomas Millette, associate professor of geography, director of the Center for the Environment, Mount Holyoke College (Cassani Lounge, Shattuck)
Workshop IV: "Water and Community: A Study of Holyoke, MA"
Sandy Nichols Ward '65, Mount Holyoke College Science Librarian and Holyoke resident and Shaili Ghimire '08, will give information on a current case study of water issues in Holyoke. (Room 303, Kendade)

3:30 - 4:00 pm, Fourth Floor, Williston Library
Water Ways Exhibition
Featuring items from the Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections that historically depict ways in which water has been used and viewed at Mount Holyoke.

4:00 – 5:00 pm, College Atrium, Williston Library
Undine Goes
A performance with Hannah Bailey and the Mount Holyoke College dancers directed by Holger Teschke, visiting professor of theatre arts, and James Coleman, professor of dance.

5:00 – 6:00 pm, Mount Holyoke Art Museum, Art Building
Gallery Reception: Eye on Water

6:30 pm Dinner with Alumnae

This symposium is free and open to the public. For more information on how alumnae can register for special alumnae events, please contact Maya D'Costa, program coordinator, Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association, at mdcosta@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2066.

Directions to Gamble Auditorium
Mount Holyoke College Campus Map
Parking Information