In the summer of 2012 I approached the New York City based artist Eve Mosher about using her original artwork, the HighWaterLine, as a new community organizing initiative. The idea was to augment the HighWaterLine, a performance artwork that helps people visualize the impacts of climate change -specifically communities vulnerable to sea level rise and flooding- with original community trainings including storytelling and solution workshops and more. In 2013 with generous support from the Compton Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Miami Foundation, The Whitman Institute and 11th Hour Project, I moved to Miami to collaborate with diverse communities for 9 plus months. While in Miami I designed and led original workshops including Storytelling Workshops using the Marshall Ganz Storytelling for Change model to build trust and understanding amongst diverse community members, workshops with scientists to help participants translate scientific data into visuals, workshops to identify local solutions and more. In Miami this expanded iteration of the HighWaterLine, now dubbed HighWaterLine 2.0, was co-led by Miami residents Marta Viciedo and Irvans Augustin along with dozens of Miami residents who demarcated 26 miles of potential future level rise throughout the diverse neighborhoods of Miami over the course of three days.

This new version of the HighWaterLine, now dubbed HighWaterLine 2.0 then traveled to the United Kingdom, where Bristol Community Coordinator Isobel Tarr actively engaged the people of Bristol via diverse workshops to discuss how climate change would impact their beloved community. With the support from the Arts Council England the people of Bristol realized their own HighWaterLine by demarcating 32 miles of potential flooding in the streets of Bristol over a period of 12 days. Eve and I then co-wrote The HighWaterLine 2.0 Guide, a free, open source community guide for “using art and public performance to build community awareness around climate change” for communities globally who wish to realize this artwork locally. HighWaterLine is an ongoing artwork.