Passport to Clean Water: Watershed Cairns

Who is Watershed Cairns? 

WATERSHED CAIRNS are the artists Libby Reuter and Joshua Rowan. They have collaborated on defining what a watershed looks like and how people use them. They have traveled to 300 locations across the Mississippi-Missouri basin placing Reuter’s glass cairns in local watersheds photographed by Rowan. Every glass cairn is strategically placed in specifically scouted scenes of some of the most beautiful and unexpected sites along the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The cairns are handmade sculptures assembled from household or antique glass. The cairns mark the watersheds metaphorically as fragile, beautiful, and deeply connected to everyday life. The large- scale, color photographs vividly bring to life the locale and intimately reveal the connections of the people and communities to their local watershed. Learn more here!

What is a Watershed? 

Print out this map of the Mississippi River and follow this worksheet to see how our region’s watershed works!