🎨 Art and Storytelling
Activities
Magic Canoe
From the Storytelling of Ravens gatherings emerged Magic Canoe, a nonprofit media and storytelling organization dedicated to amplifying the people, projects, and possibilities helping Salmon Nation thrive. The Magic Canoe name comes from a story gifted by Cecil Paul, a Haisla First Nation Elder who used this story to save his home territory from logging. He described how a magic canoe grows bigger as more people join, soon holding all of us as we paddle in the same direction. As the narrative engine of the bioregion, Magic Canoe uplifts place-based innovation and regeneration through articles, videos, digital platforms, and convenings, connecting regenerative efforts across watersheds through shared visibility and values.
Arts & Museum of the Future
On site they developed a “Museum of the Future”: archives and time capsules honor seven generations back; school visits and participatory visioning imagine seven generations forward—a place where past and future meet in the present and stories of land and people can be held while new possibilities are shaped together. Community councils—arts, design-build, elders—guide decisions through town halls and co-design. A seasonal rhythm of festivals, monthly work parties, potlucks, and resilience trainings teaches mutual aid in crises such as immigration raids or natural disasters.
Collaborative Knowledge Projects
Three years of mapping fed collaborative projects aimed at regeneration: - School workshops build youth literacy on the river and responsibility for its care. - Guided ecological tours ground understanding in direct experience of the catchment. - Citizen science deepens monitoring literacy and shared ownership of data. - Artist residencies reframe how the watershed is seen and imagined. Each format stays multi-actor and emerges from prior relationship work rather than top-down design.
Heritage Preservation
Heritage work prioritises buildings and landscapes that can still speak clearly to history—not every structure can be saved, but exceptional ones can be repaired, reused, and interpreted. Wood and stone return to use in living architecture where possible; hayfields are managed without chemicals; hand tools from shepherd culture stay in circulation so skills stay practical, not museum-bound.
HERE Magazine
A print magazine, Here, is planned to carry reporting and narrative from across the estuary—helping readers see the watershed as connected systems rather than isolated issues. behow.org serves as the public hub for guilds, fund news, and convenings.
Appalachian Cultural Infrastructure
The initiative supports place-based cultural work by developing a bioregional cultural infrastructure that includes arts funding, participatory storytelling projects, and partnerships with cultural institutions across the Southern Appalachians. Projects include: - Short-form stories follow each project, sharing tangible impacts - A full-length documentary, "Blueprint Appalachia," chronicles how the region is rebuilding post-Helene in a regenerative way This media will be nationally distributed, reframing how people see and support Southern Appalachia. By elevating local stories to national attention, Blueprint aims to shift narratives about the region from one of poverty and dependence to one of resilience, innovation, and cultural richness.
Dancing in Salt Marshes
The program pairs salt-marsh restoration and water conservation with cultural engagement—including work toward river rights charters—so ecology and culture move together rather than as separate “environmental” and “arts” tracks. Because the marshes are too fragile for heavy visitation, the BLC commissioned a film: two dancers from local communities perform in costume on the marsh itself, giving people a visceral connection to a place many will never walk on.
Education Alliance
They hold that regenerating the landscape requires a shift in how people feel and think about land. The alliance pools energy, talents, knowledge, and experience toward that end, with the vision that regeneration becomes lived practice, not only a technical agenda. They pursue two main lines of work: a shared framework of knowledge and competencies for what regenerative education means in the territory, and a social strand that stresses cohesion and cooperation—because landscapes are shared, not individual. The “Regenerando Mariposa” / “Regenerating Butterfly” concept— involving the collective planting of butterfly shaped landart sculptures made from aromatic herbs–—ties art, creativity, and biodiversity regeneration into learning that can inspire wider society.
Sacred Pathways Revitalization Project
The project uses ancient infrastructure as a tool for contemporary environmental awareness and cultural reconnection, honoring both pre-Christian and Catholic heritage. Building on the foundation of Jaime Ferrer's "Terra, Alma, Societat" work, they co-initiated a project that brought back to life seven ancient pilgrimage routes to the holy forest of Lluc. Reviving those routes—which reach back toward pre-Christian pilgrimage and sites used by prehistoric communities up to 5,000 years ago—opened a conversation about how people engage with the landscape today.
Tourism Industry Transformation Initiative
Mallorca's economy is dominated by tourism, which comprises approximately 80% of economic activity. This creates a unique context for regeneration work—tourism is both part of the problem and a necessary intervention point. The alliance has started to work on crafting partnerships within the tourism industry in order to start catalyzing change. The work included producing documentary series highlighting regenerative practices around the island called "Isla Viva".