Ten Thousand Flags, Ten Thousand Wishes for Our Rivers

Wang Ping (Kinship of Rivers Director)

I was born in Shanghai, mouth of the Yangtze, and grew up on the East China Sea, fed by the Yangtze. Now I teach creative writing at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and raise my two sons on the bank of the Mississippi. I get up at 4:00 every morning to row and paddle on the river. I travel constantly between the Yangtze and Mississippi, interviewing river people, gathering their stories, their art, music, joy and sorrow. I take my writing classes to paddle the Minnesota River, Lake Itasca, the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers, guided by the Dakota people. Such learning experiences have changed many lives of my students at Macalester College.

In 2011, I created Kinship of Rivers project with the help of many talented artists, organizers and students, to bring the Yangtze and Mississippi together as Sister Rivers, to form kinship between the river communities, and to raise awareness about our rivers.

Since 2011, we’ve paddled thousands of river miles, held workshops and flag installations at hundreds of river communities (public schools, colleges, galleries, museums, national and state parks, locks and dams, confluences, bridges,) connected with thousands of river folks, made 2000 river flags that carry people’s imagination, creativity and wishes for clean water, air and land. These beautiful and powerful river flags have fluttered in the wind along the Mississippi and its tributaries, spreading our love for rivers to the world.

Our website www.kinshipofrivers.org and Facebook group connect thousands of people across all rivers and cultures.

Now we’re ready to bring a group of artists, musicians and filmmakers to travel along the Yangtze, from its mouth (Shanghai) to its source (Tibet). Our group has two high school students (Ariel Lerner and Alex Howard: musicians and filmmakers), two recent college graduates (Megan Alpert and Oliver St. John: both writers and artists), and a young talented composer/singer/guitarist (Alex Wand). Each member is an ambassador to bring peace, joy, and American culture to the Yangtze.  

The six of us will bring 2000 river flags from the Mississippi to the Yangtze. Each flag is a piece of art, a tree, fish, bird and wish for peace and clean environment. Each has traveled back and forth along the Mississippi and its tributaries, blessing and blessed by people, air, water, and land. We’ll install them along the Yangtze, sharing them with the Yangtze communities, celebrating our rivers and cultures with the Mississippi blues, poetry, and art, inspiring the Yangtze folks to make their river flags and wishes. We’ll travel with our gifts from Shanghai to Tibet, the source of the Yangtze and all major rivers in Asia. As the river flags flutter in the wind from the roof of the world, our wish for peace, harmony and clean water will spread to the entire world.

Gifting is river’s spirit and the essence of Kinship of Rivers project. We’ve been supported by so much generosity and creativity as we paddled, performed, and made river flags along the Mississippi. 

Please help us complete our journey along the Yangtze. We need your support for our international flights, trains and boats in China. We also need your support to film and edit the Kinship of Rivers video installation for our Soap Factory exhibition in 2014.

Please help us bring the Yangtze and Mississippi together as Sister Rivers. Please help us to keep them clean and free and beautiful. These rivers belong to all of us, as our sisters, mothers, friends, life givers. They connect us all, run through us like blood. They are our blood.

You can help us with your financial support. Any amount is helpful. We have set up different packages (art, books, prints, updates, and even a spot on our trip down the Yangtze) as our thank you gifts to your generosity. If you can’t help us with money, sharing our campaign with  your friends and like-minded people is also a great help.

Our Itinerary Along the Yangtze (July 15-August 15, 2013)

July 15-16) Fly to Shanghai Pudong Airport

1. Hang flags at the Congming islands and Jiuduansha Island where the Yangtze enters the sea
2. Poetry reading with Shanghai poets (Momo, Yanli, Yuyu, others)

July 17-19) Changsha,

1. Gathering with Master Sculptor Lei Yixin and other Changsha art and literary communities for a celebration of rivers and cultural exchanges from the two rivers (see details later)
2. Making a dugout canoe

July 20-22) Boat ride through the Three Gorges Dam

1. A boat ride to visit the world’s largest dam in Yichang (the Three Gorges Dam), and the Three Gorge Canyons
2. Sharing music from the Mississippi
3. River Flag installation and creation on the boat

July 23-24) Leshan Buddha

River flag installation at the Tang Dynasty statue at the confluence of the three rivers

July 25-28) Gold Sand River celebration with Yi (Nuosu) poets, musicians, dancers and spiritual leaders

1. A two-day gathering with the Yi ethnic minority community on the bank of the Gold Sand River, the Upper Yangtze
2. River Flag making and installation
3. Music exchange between the Yangtze and Mississippi
4. Healing (Bi Mo priests, Yi shaman and Native American shaman/wolf dancer)
5. Dance

July 29-31: Train to Lhasa

Connect with the Tibetan communities and install river flags at sacred places

Aug. 1-7:  Sanjiangyuan: Headwaters of the Yangtze

Installation of the 3000 river flags at the Three River Source for the Yangtze, the Yellow, and Lancang (Mekong in Vietnam)

Aug. 8-9:  Xining, capital of Qinghai Province, gateway to Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a gathering of Muslims, Tibetans, Tu and Han nationalities.

1. Qinghai International poetry festival
2. Visit the Qinghai Lake, installation of the river flags at the biggest salt lake in the world.
3. River flag installation

Aug. 10-12: Train from Lhasa to Changsha: to complete and paddle the dugout canoe

Aug. 13:  Shanghai

Aug. 15: Fly back to USA

Details for the Kinship of Rivers Event

River Flags Installation:

3000 river flags made by individuals from the river communities along the Yangtze and Mississippi, Minnesota, St. Croix, Nebraska, Namekagen Rivers, and other tributaries, will be installed along the rivers. These flags vibrate with people’s imaginations and wishes for clean water and a harmonious world. When they flutter in the wind, they will release great energy into the air and transform the place with peace, joy and creativity.

Art: Making River Flags:

1. Share poems from the Mississippi and Yangtze Rivers
2. Use local plants as stencils to make prints on hand-dyed cotton fabrics, led by printmaking professor Ruthann Godollei 
3. The Yangtze flags will travel with the Mississippi flags along the Yangtze River and for further installations

Music:

1. Music from the Mississippi, performed by Annette Waya Ewing, Alex Wand and John Ruskey
2. Poetry and music by Wang Ping and Alex Wand
3. Music from the Yangtze: performed by the Chinese musicians
4. Two river collaborations

Dance

1. Wolf dance by Annette Waya Ewing
2. Water dance by Hui Wilcox, Wang Ping
3. Dance by the Chinese dancers

Poetry Reading

1. James Lenfeste, Annette Waya Ewing, Wang Ping, John Ruskey, Ruthann Godollei
2. Chinese poets: Jidimajia, Momo, Yan Li, Yuyu, Akuwuwu, Zai Yongming, and many other local Chinese poets

Documentary Film:

Film crew: Larkin, Alex Howard, Ariel Lerner, and company

Making Dugout Canoe

This is the most ancient art of shipbuilding dated all the way to 10,000 BC, and the oldest Chinese dugout unearthed so far was from 8000 BC in the Lower Yangtze. John Ruskey, America’s legendary canoe maker, will work with the local Chinese canoe makers to make a dugout canoe from a whole tree, and paddle it in the local river when it’s completed.

Website:

All the flags and poems will be digitally scanned and uploaded on the website: www.kinshipofrivers.org, under “river flags” and “gallery of gifts.” Contributors can then download the flags from the site and enjoy the poems and art by other participants, and continue their personal interactions with the project.

Multi-media Exhibitions

Upon returning from China, we will create a multi-media exhibit and a documentary film that further share all we have learned, created and achieved through this unique project.

Please see www.kinshipofrivers.org for more details on its mission, goals and all the events we’ve accomplished. For all the beautiful flags, please go to “river flags.”

More detailed description of Kinship of Rivers Project.

Kinship of Rivers is a five-year interdisciplinary project to build kinship among communities along the Mississippi and Yangtze, and bring much awareness to the river’s ecosystem through art, literature, music, food, and installations of river flags made by river communities. Since its creation in spring, 2011, we’ve attracted over 2220 members to our facebook group, where we share poetry, art and news about rivers on the daily basis. Our www.kinshipofrivers.org website has published thousands of poems, stories, music, art, videos and photographs.

Making River Flags — a medium inspired by Tibetan prayer flags— is a key element for the mission. Wang Ping and other artists have visited hundreds of schools and river communities to share poetry, make river flags, and install them along the rivers. We travel by canoes, boats, trains, cars, bikes, motorcycles, and on foot, up and down the Mississippi, St. Croix, Minnesota, Missouri and the Yangtze rivers, sharing poetry and stories, making food and music, and creating over 2000 river flags with hand-dyed fabric. These flags, carrying amazing poetry, art, and prints of the local plants from the riverbanks, have traveled thousands of river miles: the entire Mississippi between Itasca and the Gulf of Mexico, the entire St. Croix and Minnesota rivers, part of the Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas rivers, the Atchafalaya Basin, and rivers from California and San Antonio. As they flutter along the riverbanks, confluences, islands and burial mounds, they release people’s wishes through the wind, and soak up energy from each place, each river, each tree, and each hand that made them. Just as rivers gather all kinds of water: streams, creaks, rain drops, springs, Kinship of Rivers has brought communities together: Tibetans, Ojibwes, Dakotas, Cherokees, Choctaws, African Americans, Hispanics, Europeans, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Nepalese, children, seniors, students, teachers, artists, scientists, environmentalists, politicians, park rangers, galleries, theatres, museums, schools, colleges, National Park Service, and Army Corps of Engineer. Blessed by the people, places and rivers, our river flags have become ambassadors of peace, joy and harmony. Wherever we go and whenever we set up the river flags, the wind chimes with melodies from the Mississippi and Yangtze, tea and dumplings, people would come to create art, share stories, and make more flags to join in our forces. Through outdoor hands-on activities, through the stimulations of five senses, every participant, from 6-months old to 93, is transformed into a poet, artist, cultural connoisseur, and river’s friend.

The Yangtze and Mississippi Rivers share many things in common as the world’s third and fourth greatest rivers. Both rivers share similar challenges such as pollution, sinking deltas and cities (New Orleans and Shanghai) caused by dams, agricultural and industrial runoffs, and overuse of ground water. Both rivers are rich with history and culture, inspiring poets, writers, artists and musicians. As the two rivers flow across the continents, giving and taking on their way to the sea, they teach us that we are all connected. This is what Confucius envisioned two thousand years ago:The four seas as one family, and the world as one commonwealth.

Gifting is the spirit of the river. It gives and sustains life without asking for a return. It includes everything along its course to the sea without judgment. The project will inspire the creation of music, dance, food and river flags offered as gifts from the rivers and to the rivers, a gesture to show respect, gratitude and care from the rivers’ friends and stewards.

The Voyages take place in parts. In the summers of 2011 and 2012, a team of artists, musicians, dancers and students traveled down the Mississippi with cultural gifts from the Yangtze (photos, art, music, tea, food, films) and shared them with the Mississippi communities while making river flags as gifts for the Yangtze River. In two years, we’ve made 2000 river flags and will bring these gifts to the Yangtze. As we travel, we’ll make more river flags with the local communities and install them all in Tibet.

We hope to reach 10,000 river flags by 2016.

We’ve done many multi-medium exhibitions along the Mississippi with river flag installations, poetry reading, sculpture installations, film, music and dance performances, tea ceremonies, dumpling making, flag workshops, and live sand-mandala creation by Tibetan Buddhist monks.

A documentary film will be the final product for the project.

Project Goals

Paddling/traveling: We travel along the two rivers to connect people and communities, celebrate cultures and rivers through sharing and making art, music, dance, poetry and stories, food, river flag installations.

Kinship of Rivers website: Featuring the project mission statement, travel details, river flags and albums for events, individual and organization participants, events, gallery of gifts that include poetry, stories, music, art, photography and dance, maps and portraits of the two rivers

Public performances: 

1. Creating and installing river flags at selected sites along the two rivers. The first installation of flags is up at Will Steger Foundation Center in Ely, MN. Other sites will include Fort Snelling, the Great River Road Visitor and Learning Center at Freedom Park, in Prescott, Wisconsin, Soap Factory, Lock and Dams No. 1 and 26, the Great River Museum,  Emily Carr University, UCSB, Lake Itasca, Twin Cities, Red Wings, Iowa, Wisconsin, St. Louis, Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, New Orleans, Gulf of Mexico, and other sites.
2. Story and poetry readings open to river communities
3. Music performance
4. Dance performance
5. River flag workshop
6. Tea and food workshop
7. Sculpture installation
8. Paddle
9. Dug-canoe building with the local communities

Kinship of Rivers Multimedia Exhibition is a culminating collaborative project with participating artists and students who have traveled the two rivers. We create sculptural installations with gifts, objects, stories and sounds collected from both rivers. The exhibition has been travels to museums and galleries along the Mississippi and Yangtze.

A Kinship of Rivers film that documents the project from the preparation stage to the final exhibition