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This project is an autoethnographic look at the Schuylkill River Trail, combining personal anecdote and experience with larger cultural and political histories. 

 

During lockdown, the river trail became one of my few safe places of shared solace, where I could safely see friends and loved ones outside of my housemates. Wanting to connect further with the space, I embarked on a series of note taking and mark making, each drawing exploring a different aspect of experience with the river. Inspired by William Anastasi’s pocket drawings, I created works by placing a mark making tool in a pad of paper and seeing what marks were made as I walked the trail. After returning home, I’d also make drawings physically retracing my route on a map. Then I began an intimate research of the history of the space, learning about the Indigenous Tribes that once inhabited the land, and the coal mining companies that took it over afterwards. I studied artists like Eakins and Birch who had documented the very same river centuries before me, and I studied my relationships with the people with whom I walked the river.