Like our veins, rivers course through land nourishing life. Essential and yet, depleted, these passageways carry the histories of care and sovereignty; displacement and degradation; resistance and survival. Despite interruptions; damming and pollution; rivers are underestimated; stronger and more determined than shallow colonial engineering. We are born of the water rivers carry, we are sustained by it and it cleanses us. They are sites of devotion and exploitation, of new life and loss, of abundance and scarcity. ‘Rivers’ is the grounding theme of this episode. 

CANVAS speaks to visual artist Clare Britton and Gadigal Elder, artist and activist, Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, Gamilaroi poet, folklorist and educator Luke Patterson and inter-disciplinary artist Kalanjay Dhir. These artists discuss recent works and their broader practices which have dealt physically and thematically with Rivers.