History of the HighWaterLine Project

HighWaterLine was a public art project enacted on the streets of New York City in 2007. For 6 months, artist Eve Mosher drew a blue chalk line along the 10' above sea level line throughout Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan as a way to draw attention to climate change issues in NYC. This was an artistic strategy for inviting conversations about climate change in the very neighborhoods that are projected to be impacted by a rise in sea level over the next century and how citizens can participate in addressing lifestyle changes that need to happen now. 

Why the HighWaterLine Learning Project?

For the HighWaterLine Learning Project, Mosher is partnering with Patricia Watts, founder of ecoartspace, to develop a learning guide for educators and youth to re-enact the HighWaterLine project in their own neighborhoods. The guide will provide the resources and tools to assist educators in developing citizen science activities combined with aesthetic inquiry that can offer unique opportunities for understanding climate change, ecology, science in empowering ways.

The project is an amazing experience in which to participate. Along with the learning gained from the research they will do, participants get a chance to explore their own neighborhoods inviting new ways of being and seeing in an aesthetic presentation on city streets. It is also an opportunity for them to have conversations with neighbors, build community, and bear witness to the potential impacts of each individual. Mosher's own experience creating the project was life-changing, and she wants to be able to share the project with other communities. It is important to the artist that the project be carried out by community members themselves, and not as a solo performance by Mosher. 

Where the Money Will Go...

The HighWaterLine Learning Project will include development of a guide which will be made available free of charge to educators around the world. The guide will be flexible enough to be applicable to students ages 10-20, as well as adults, and will be designed to meet a wide range of education standards.

$3,000 that's all - it pays the fee for the guide development and writing, graphic design of the guide, and a limited edition printing. The final product will be an approximately 20-page guide in PDF format, available for download on the internet. Next year after educators have the opportunity to use the guide with their students, there will be another round of fundraising for the development of an interactive website with the help of the educators feedback.

Who are Eve & Patricia?

Eve Mosher is the artist who conceived, developed and enacted the HighWaterLine project in 2007. This was her first public/interventionist/interactive artwork, which set her on a path of working on projects with communities in mind. She was so powerfully moved by the experience of creating work that engaged people in the neighborhoods in which they lived and worked, that she has continued to develop projects in that vein in the years since. The HighWaterLine project received international press attention for its ability to translate a complex issue into a visually high impact project that also allowed for interaction. A HighWaterLine | Dublin is currently being planned for early 2012.

Patricia Watts is the founder of ecoartspace and west coast curator who specializes in artists who address environmental issues internationally. She has written art and environmental education activities for public schools and advocates for trans-disciplinary learning for both in school and after school programs. Watts feels that the HighWaterLine project is a transformative learning opportunity for schoolchildren to build critical spatial or visual thinking skills in areas of math, science, ecology and art. Exercising students ability to imagine the future, while using their minds and bodies to explore and delineate the world we live in now, is an invaluable educational activity.

What Else Can You Do?

Make sure you spread the word! Your money can go further if you get friends to donate also. Use the share tools and promote the project on FaceBook and Twitter. Tell your favorite organizations and groups so they can promote it also.

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