Tomorrow, April 11: Watershed Event: Exploring a New Water Ethic for Minnesota at Mill City Museum

Time: 3:00pm - 9:30pm

Location: Mill City Museum, 704 South 2nd Street

No registration necessary for April 11th events featuring Keynotes, Panel Discussions, Film Screening, and Audience Engagement. The event is free and open to the public.

The University of Minnesota Students for Design Activism are hosting the first ever Watershed Event, a free, public symposium on future scenarios and solutions to clean, abundant water in Minnesota. Set to take place at Mill City Museum on Friday, April 11th, 3pm (session 1), 5:30 pm reception, and 7pm (session 2). The event will bring together water-­focused leaders within agriculture, design, science, activism, and policy, to share knowledge, ideas, and strategies to build a future for how we use and value water. Partners include the Floodplain Collective and the University of Minnesota Department of Landscape Architecture.

In addition to thought-leaders such as William Wenk, Denver-based designer of the Saint Paul Great River Passage, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Commissioner, John Linc Stine, Dorene Day of the Indigenous Peoples’ Task Force , and Minnesota Public Radio’s Dave Peters of Ground Level, among others, the inaugural Watershed Event will include:

• Building a future for water: Transforming practice, policy, and implementation (3:00-5:30)

Keynote speaker William Wenk of Wenk Landscape Architecture & Planning will discuss past and future realities of living and working in an arid climate, highlight lessons learned, and the bridge between small-scale strategies and the large problems facing the future of Minnesota’s waters.

• Film Screening: Watershed (7:00-8:00)

Minnesota’s premier film screening of Watershed will examine the questions raised by the use and value of water transported from the Colorado River, activating a parallel conversation about how we can approach and impact the future of our water-rich state.

• Steps towards change: Sources for a new water ethic in Minnesota. (8:00-9:30)

Moderator Matt Kucharski, Executive Vice President of PadillaCRT, branding and marketing, will pose questions that examine how we value water and the role of cultural beliefs, scientific data, and design innovation as sources for a new water ethic that supports clean, abundant water. Panelists such as Deborah Swackhamer, Co-Director of the Water Resources Center, will bring their expertise to discuss action-oriented possibilities affecting water in Minnesota.

The Watershed Event was made possible by the UMN College of Liberal Arts Imagine Fund Grant and UMN Institute on the Environment.

For more, please visit the Watershed Event website at http://watershed.design.umn.edu/. Follow the event on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/studentsfordesignactivismwatershedevent and tell us what you think of the event on Twitter: @SDAumn #watershedevent.