About

What can the watersheds we are part of teach about ecosystems and restoration? What else can restoration mean? The artists and writers who have contributed to River Lab use interdisciplinary research methods, poetics, and art-making to re-vision dominant narratives around ecological restoration. Working within distinct watersheds near home, we are building a live document and speculative toolkit to revisit what else restoration can be.

We began by looking into the etymologies of three words:

River: river (n.) early 13c., from Anglo-French rivere, Old French riviere "river, riverside, river bank" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *riparia "riverbank, seashore, river" (source also of Spanish ribera, Italian riviera), noun use of fem. of Latin riparius "of a riverbank" (see riparian). Generalized sense of "a copious flow" of anything is from late 14c. The Old English word was ea "river," cognate with Gothic ahwa, Latin aqua (see aqua-). Romanic cognate words tend to retain the sense "river bank" as the main one, or else the secondary Latin sense "coast of the sea" (compare Riviera).

Restoration: restore (v.) c. 1300, "to give back," also, "to build up again, repair," from Old French restorer, from Latin restaurare "repair, rebuild, renew," from re- "back, again" (see re-) + -staurare, as in instaurare "to set up, establish; renew, restore," from PIE *stau-ro-, from root *sta- "to stand, make or be firm." Related: Restored; restoring. Late 14th century, "a means of healing or restoring health; renewing of something lost," from Old French restoration and directly from Late Latin restorationem (nominative restoratio), noun of action from past participle stem of Latin restaurare.

Plan: from French plan "ground plot of a building, map," literally "plane surface" (mid-16c.), from Latin planum "level or flat surface," noun use of adjective planus "level, flat" (from PIE root *pele- (2) "flat; to spread").The French noun plan is also partly an alteration of the earlier French noun plant, a derivative of the verb planter “to plant, drive in, stick in, fix in place,” from Latin plantāre “to set in place, fix in place, plant, transplant.” The English noun plan comes from the French noun plan “a sketch, diagram, drawing, ground plan, plane surface,” from the adjective plan “flat, even, plane (in geometry).” French plan is a Latinized form of plain (with the same meanings), from the Latin adjective plānus “flat, level, horizontal, two-dimensional, plane (in geometry).” The meaning “an organized proposal or scheme of action” first appeared in 1635; the more etymological meaning “a drawing or diagram of an object made by projection on a horizontal plane” appeared in 1664.

“River Labs” is a workshop and conceptual project led by artist Mary Mattingly and contributed to by artists and writers around the United States and beyond.