© hannah palmer, 2020
"I spend a lot of time taking photos of the Flint headwaters that prove they are beautiful, inviting, alive, and full of potential—all in an effort to contradict the decades-old narrative that the river is a nuisance to be contained, a dumping grounds. Currently, the Flint River in the airport area is all of those things simultaneously, and that’s part of what makes it exciting to “Find the Flint.” Sometimes I dream about the headwaters, sometimes they give me nightmares.
This complex appreciation is what I love about Virginie Drujon-Kippelen’s ongoing series of headwaters portraits and landscapes. Virginie is an accomplished fine art photographer who has been following and documenting our work with Finding the Flint for a couple years. Her photos grapple with the sometimes sinister, sometimes trancendent beauty of the headwaters, ultimately “challenging the constructed notion of beauty,” and the way we value urban wildness.
- Hannah Palmer, Finding the Flint coordinator, May 5, 2020
Explanatory video of Urban Wilderness + Man-Made Nature