WITH THE MELTWATERS, SO TOO WE GO
With The Meltwaters, So Too We Go, part of the ÈLÈGĒ[S] project, is a mixed media and communal work that seeks to document the emotional landscape of loss by capturing the stories of people who feel the impacts of climate change most intimately.
Rapid climate change is reshaping ecosystems and weather patterns, winters in the Northeast United States and glaciers in Subarctic and Alpine regions are being profoundly altered. This project shifts the focus away from raw climate data to the lived human experiences and attends to the emotional toll these changes have on individuals and communities whose lives are intertwined with the cryosphere.
For generations, these communities have depended on the presence of ice and snow, shaping their cultural identity, economy, food security, and way of life. However, as global temperatures rise and ice continues to retreat, the grief of losing these natural elements becomes not just a physical loss but a cultural and emotional one as well. With The Meltwaters, So Too We Go aims to explore the profound sense of mourning for a disappearing world and anticipatory grief as individuals witness the erasure of the landscapes that have defined them for centuries.
With The Meltwaters, So Too We Go seeks to make visible the emotional landscape shaped by climate change. The work highlights not only the human toll but also the impact on more-than-human communities. By bridging geographical distances, the project seeks to connect diverse communities that are experiencing similar emotional responses to the changing climate. The project endeavors to create a collective visual archive that illustrates the intimate relationship between people and their rapidly transforming environments.
With The Meltwaters, So Too We Go intends to inspire empathy, awareness, and a deeper connection to the planetary changes underway, fostering a sense of stewardship for the ecosystems we are losing, and offering a platform for the voices of those at the front lines of climate change to be seen.
Meltwaters
I Once Was A Part Of The GlacierTerminus
As You Read This - I Am Already GoneNot Far Behind
It's Only A Matter Of Time & Temperature/FILM
To learn more about the film at the center of this project, and to view the full pitch deck – please visit www.dirtpicturestudio.com
“With The Meltwaters, So Too We Go” is a documentary exploring the profound emotional terrain of communities across the Northeastern & Northwestern US, Subarctic, Nordic, and Alpine regions, where the warming winters and dwindling ice and snow expose the raw edges of climate grief and anxiety. Through personal stories and evocative visuals, the film reveals how anticipatory mourning, cultural erosion, and resilience arise as people confront a changing landscape, inviting a shared call to steward the fragile ecosystems we risk losing.
This project is supported in part by:
/ PROJECT LOG
Notes from the field, project updates + annoucements.
/ COMMUNITY EVENTS + COLLECTIVE RITUAL
06.13.25 - LAUNCH | “Voices From the Melt” – A Communal Offering for the Cryosphere
LAUNCHING - JUNE 13 at the UNOC3 | Albedo Foundation Cryosphere Pavilion
"Voices From the Melt – A Communal Offering for the Cryosphere" is a participatory ecoart project inviting participants to honor glacier loss through shared poetic expression and embodied action. Through guided meditation, reflective writing, and a collective mending, attendees contribute to the creation of a large-scale textile “art-ifact” that symbolically reconstructs a vanishing glacier—stitch by stitch, word by word. This living offering becomes both elegy and action—a call to witness, remember, and respond.
The project, part of the communal participatory elements of "With The Meltwaters, So Too We Go", is launching on June 13th at 10:15AM local time in Nice, France at the Albedo Foundation Cryosphere Pavilion as part of the UNOC3. The event will happen in the Green Zone, and though open to the general public, registration is required - you can register HERE to be part of this event and to participate.
/ RITUALS + PRACTICES + PONDERINGS
Feeling Is Part Of The Work
Questions To Ponder - Climate Grief & Anxiety
Exercise: Deep Listening As Reciprocity
Communal Project + Poetic Practice | “Voices From the Melt” – A Communal Offering for the Cryosphere
We gather at the edge of loss, where language must stretch to hold grief, science, memory, and wonder. We gather to witness and speak for the vanishing.
Close your eyes. Imagine standing beside a glacier — ancient, breathing, slow. Feel its breath on the air. Imagine what it has seen, what it remembers. What do you hear? What do you feel, sense, smell? What words do not exist for what you feel? What remains unsaid?
Now, imagine it beginning to vanish. What does loss sound like in ice? In water? What words rise in you like the meltwaters?
Write one or two poetic lines that address the questions above, or these following prompts:
- “If a glacier could speak, it would say...”
- “The ice remembers...”
- “I mourn the loss of...”
- “Science tells me ___. My body feels ___.”
- “When the last ice melts, we will need new words for...”
Exercise: Intentional Observation
/ PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO
/ AUDIO
/ SUGGESTED READINGS + RESEARCH
