Recreate

Product of a residency and collaboration with Mississippi Watershed Management Organization through Coffee House Press about the re-creation of an island in the Mississippi River, for recreation. 

See the article in  _SCAPE magazine (below) about the project.

Performative Activity

To the right and below, invitations and pictures from an experiential and performative dimension of the Recreate project.

RECREATE / AN ISLAND RIVER MEETING

After a 50-year stint as industrialized riverside, Hall’s Island is an island once again, through spectacular effort. Want to paddle out and see where contemporary conservation and recreation meet?

Coffee House Press and the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization (MWMO) invite you to a “meeting on the river” with interdisciplinary poet Moheb Soliman. This June and August, creative guided excursions will take place from North Mississippi Regional Park to Hall’s Island, using public Paddle Share kayaks, free of charge.

Trips will be creative and critical engagements with environment, self, and others, through quietude, observation, and discussion as well as poetic and performative presentation and interaction.  Depending on conditions, trips will also feature landing at MWMO and Hall’s Island itself to experience it firsthand. Participants will also receive a special “as is” edition of Moheb’s work about Hall’s Island as a keepsake of this uniquely used, recycled, renewed place between the natural and cultural.

Details

  • There will be four trips: Friday, June 8 from 12-3 p.m.; Sunday, June 10 from 2-5 p.m.; Friday, August 10 from 2-5 p.m.; and Sunday, August 12 from 2-5 p.m. For June 8, contact Moheb directly at mohebsolimanmohebsoliman@gmail.com. Otherwise RSVP HERE.

  • 12 people max/trip. Solo and double kayaks available—sign up for preference. Accommodations can be made on-site to pair up more experienced with more novice paddlers as the group sees fit.

  • Comfort with paddling, water, and physical flexibility are necessary, but no special skill or fitness. Trips will be slow and easy going, down-river one way for 3.9mi. Each trip will have a National Park Service ranger in attendance as official safety and paddle guide. But be prepared for some wetness!

  • Meet at North Mississippi Regional Park—5116 N Mississippi Dr, Minneapolis, MN 55412. Return transportation provided—a free Niceride bicycle or carpool.

  • Participants will sign standard Paddle Share liability waivers extending to Coffee House Press, MWMO, and Moheb Soliman.

  • In the event of bad weather, an email will be sent out two hours before start time.

Background
This project is an extension of Moheb Soliman’s fall 2017 residency with the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization through Coffee House Press’ In the Stacks program. During, he studied watershed documents, maps, digital archives, new plans and videos, and other materials related to the history and transformation of Hall’s Island, as well as meeting engineers, conservationists, and public officials involved. The project and residency explore the relationship between recreation and conservation in our time; the complex measures we’re compelled to go to in order to “save” and manage nature; and the value of bringing together artists with other professionals in working with environmental issues.