imagining mill creek, 2019

Performance, sound; collaboration with Michael Ferrin

This project was a mapping experiment of sorts. Looking through historic maps of Philadelphia, Michael and I noticed a sudden change between 1843 and 1855: what is now West Philadelphia went from countryside to urban grid in the span of 12 years. The 1843 map noted a creek, there titled “Mill Creek” but originally known as Nanganesey by Lenape communities native to the area, running north from Clark Park up present day 43rd street. I live right up the block and was intrigued by this ghost of a body of water that was buried so close to me. We built our own map that followed the creek’s path as closely as possible on the contemporary urban grid, and then walked the entire ‘trail’ upstream from the Schuylkill to the city limits, where the water reemerges from its urban burial. We took an audio recording of the whole walk. I think of the track as a map that collapses time, building the contemporary sounds of humanity moving over this buried river into the landscape of the river itself.