Lisa Blackmore: How to Eat a River?

When we eat, we are always eating landscapes. Water and chemicals flow into food, then into the microbes dining in our intestines, connecting us metabolically to ecosystems where food production takes place. This talk will reflect on food as a medium to cultivate awareness of hydrosocial interdependence and stimulate more equitable modes of coexistence, care, and multispecies community. Lisa Blackmore will focus on the project Piquete del Río Bogotá, a communal lunch organized as the entre—ríos collective in 2023 that gathered river caretakers at the iconic Tequendama Falls to share a meal of organic produce grown in one of Colombia’s most polluted watersheds. Lisa Blackmore will consider how commensality might galvanize coalitionary energies in water-stressed territories by connecting members of Indigenous Mhuysca councils, ecological restoration projects, organic food production, nature tourism, environmental education, and heritage initiatives. Sharing inspiring stories of these river guardians and their everyday practices of care, conservation, and food sovereignty, the talk also uplifts their work as part of the hydrocommons cultures emerging throughout the Americas to transform ways of relating to and through water.