This piece is the culmination of video and audio recordings made during a year long journey down the Mississippi River as part of a flotilla of homemade houseboats whose inhabitants have made a conscious choice to live beyond societal conventions. Living off of foraged food, catfish, scraps from the trash, and food bank hand outs, and traveling in boats made from scraps of other boats, ply wood, plastic barrels and even and old Volkswagon, the crew of this armada invents their lives on a daily basis. This three channel video installation immerses the viewer in the sights sand sounds of life along a lush, deeply american, dystopian wilderness that was once the country's economic superhighway. Exhibited at Innova gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and as part of the True/False film festival in Columbia, Missouri.
Time spent with Evan, Dave and their cadre of boat folks... started this project on one of their earlier trips on the Tombigbee and then continued with them on their next big trip on the Mississippi River. This footage is primarily from the first short film I made, and a little of the footage from the year long journey... The footage has had many incarnations: as part of a multi-media performance piece, gallery installations and a short film.