Ryan Griffis will discuss the watery realities of the territory now known as Central Illinois, as a water-land body directly connected to the Gulf via the Mississippi River Watershed and talk about his work with the Deep Time Chicago project dealing with the political ecology of the greater Chicago area through creative practices. He will then be joined by Barnes, New Orleans musician, writer, naturalist, park ranger, ethnographic photographer, and book author, to discuss the connections between Central Illinois and the Gulf along the Mississippi, how human activity and environmental change upriver have mirrored and impacted downriver people and systems, and what role the arts can play in helping us address these issues.