Alberto is an Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York in Fredonia, has been the founder and director of a youth fly fishing program for 18 years and is a fly fishing guide. For the past 20 years he has been working on art that tries to reconnect communities to their local bodies of water to become more sensitized to the complex issues that affect them.
During an exhibition on the history and present conditions of the Scajaquada River in Buffalo , New York, I was approached to consider doing a similar project about the Bagmati River that flows through the middle of Kathmandu, Nepal. I was excited about extending my body of work beyond the Western Hemisphere and to working with a culturally diverse community.
The project was a success and resulted in a documentary, a book written in English and Nepali, an exhibition, website and a poster.
The fly fishing program is another way of reconnecting people to their local environment. It has educational and therapeutic benefits. I’m working with youth to get them more engaged with their environment and to instill a sense of stewardship. I also organize a conference on this topic to help educators connect science, art and literature through fly fishing.
At the OpenVillage, I will give a lecture about the Bagmati River Project and a brief overview of the other projects that led up to it. It is an active session with visuals, sound and video. I’d like to open a discussion about the topic afterwards.
We will also do a fly fishing demo with a group of children and participants of OpenVillage. We will combine this with citizen science experiments on water quality and stream biology. This format can be documented and reused by schools who would like to implement a similar project in their curriculum.
Alberto’s lecture and demo are part of the Citizen Science track at openvillage. You can get in touch with him and join the conversation here.
Alberto is one of the people I look forward to meet at the Festival this October. We’ve been in touch for almost a year now and his contribution is one of the most valuable in community building: the gift of attention.
I am very excited to be part of Open Village and Edgeryders and look forward to working with everyone there!!! It should lead to some interesting discussions!!
Hi @noemi. Yes I was there at Bagmati Cleaning Campaign. It is still running. Once a week people volunteer to clean the river. I volunteer two hours a week for a year. We also get an SMS reminder from government network which was very helpful to keep updated ourselves. More than two thousand people be there It was not only about cleaning the river but also the world heritage sites like Pashupati Temple which is considered as one of the main Hindu temple around the world.
whow ! I am very excited to be part of Open Village and Edgeryders and look forward to working with everyone there.
Water was also the point from were we start to be more and more interested on Biohacking with a ecofeminism point of view. we start to be afraid of the situation of the river in our community in Barcelona Clafou and from there we were researching about fitodepuration and bioremediation to try to fix or at least solve the contamination from heavy metals and strogens at the water. Finally I was super sad to realize that you can.t do to much is the people from industry doesn.t stop top thought away contaminants. From the environmental to the body everything matters and is the same there is not a impermeable membrane on our skin we are permeable to particles, water, hormones etc. super interested on talk with all of you to try to find ways to get things better for future.
Your presentation was so nice in Brussels, and I love your book also…
Your card did not have your email address, so I am first trying this to say I’d still love to get a copy if possible.
I am at
Ch du Châtaignier 9C
CH 1026 Echandens
Switzerland
Hope your travels went smoothly and to see you again!
(go fishing next time??)
@albertorey (I guess I should put this in to make sure you get notified…)
I copy my above note, just in case it goes directly to your mailbox.
my email btw is raronoff@bluewin.ch
Hi, Alberto!
Your presentation was so nice in Brussels, and I love your book also…
Your card did not have your email address, so I am first trying this to say I’d still love to get a copy if possible.
I am at
Ch du Châtaignier 9C
CH 1026 Echandens
Switzerland
Hope your travels went smoothly and to see you again!
(go fishing next time??)
