Finding Waters

Finding Waters is a situated, ongoing research-creation project that weaves together oral history, somatic practice, and ecological activism through different sites, notably the Gay Falls (Chutes Sainte-Marguerite) in Sainte-Adèle, nd the buried rivière Saint-Martin under Parc Lafontaine.

This large inquiry into submerged and resilient waterscapes and explores how waters like rivers, creeks, and waterfalls act as vessels of queer memory, resistance, and becoming. Following Astrida Neimanis’s invitation to think with watery bodies, I approach these sites not as static backgrounds, but as relational interlocutors that move, resist, and remember.

Working with a local collective, ''Les ami-es des chutes'' I have worked on defending the right of usage for the queer community who was targetted in 2020, and co-created an oral history map that documents the Gay Falls as a vital 2SLGBTQ+ landmark—a sanctuary of clandestine gathering, survival, and joy.

I interrogate how hidden waters can become co-conspirators in processes of collective healing and relational stewardship. Inspired by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s insistence on land-based resurgence, I treat these watery sites as collaborators in acts of care and resurgence, rather than resources to be known or claimed. Through field recordings, story circles, and sensorial immersion, I activate water sites not only as a geography, but as a living, breathing commons shaped by flows, leaks, and overflowings.

Doing so, I am moving toward practices of re-inhabiting damaged worlds through porous listening, embodied mapping, and attuned, anti-extractive modes of relation.