EARTH MEMORY


EARTH MEMORY (Zameen Ki Yaad) is a cross-cultural collab with poets, students, ranchers & fishers exploring fire, water & memory in Oregon & Pakistan. Through poetry, film & outdoor installations it examines environmental loss, restoration & our relationship with water.

Paisley is ground zero for climate disruption: over 75% of its watershed trees are lost to wildfire. Lake Abert, Oregon’s only high-pH salt lake & critical migratory bird habitat is drying as temperatures rise. These changes mirror global warming & rising sea levels reshaping salt mangroves in the Arabian Sea Delta.

I envision The MEMORY OF WATER, an animated film tracing cycles of water, salt, fire, birds and humans across millennia on two continents. Lake Abert & the Arabian Sea Delta share salt & alkaline ecologies, linking ranching & fishing communities. The film connects communities across continents through shared ecological knowledge, cultural memory & local responses to climate disruption.

Emilie Lygren & I launched a Paisley HS_Karachi poetry + art exchange on climate futures. Poems form an anthology & appear on banners carried in processions, with live recitals embedding youth voices on the salt playas. Visitors move through a corridor of geographies, memories, & imagined futures. The exchange is documented with poems layered into the film. Exhibits over 3 years at PLAYA, Waterstone + Paragon (OR), & Koel Gallery (Pakistan) connect communities to explore ecological memory & climate action.