Draw­ing Time: Mak­ing the Rio Mean­der Map

Some say all of this launched about 4.5 bil­lion years ago when Earth coa­lesced from par­ti­cles, min­er­als and liq­uids2 radi­at­ing from a big event 9.3 bil­lion years pri­or. Oth­ers say some­where between thir­ty-five and twen­ty-eight mil­lion years ago a rift began form­ing in Earth’s stretch­ing lithos­phere open­ing con­di­tions for water to gath­er. Yet, not until eight to six hun­dred-thou­sand years ago did the water­shed form a con­nec­tion to open ocean at what we now call the Gulf of Mex­i­co. Evi­dence of human activ­i­ty along the rio has been not­ed as ear­ly as five thou­sand years ago, while cer­tain­ly peo­ples have lived along and across the rio for per­haps two or three times as long. Rio Bravo/Rio Grande is part of a deep time cycle pre­ced­ing and facil­i­tat­ing bio­mes of plant and animal/human evolution.

In 2016, artist Zoe Leonard began an epic pho­to­graph­ic work focus­ing on Rio Bravo/Rio Grande as it serves as a bor­der between Mex­i­co and the Unit­ed States from Ciu­dad Juarez/El Paso to the Gulf of Mex­i­co. Approach­ing the project as ​“mul­ti­fac­eted leit­mo­tif” Leonard artic­u­lates how ​“the shift­ing nature of a river—which floods peri­od­i­cal­ly, changes course, and carves new channels—is as odds with the polit­i­cal task it is asked to per­form.” The ambi­tion to exam­ine present com­plex­i­ties, exist­ing in plain sight, per­me­ates an effort that stems from the dura­tion of its mak­ing, the den­si­ty of pic­tures made (thou­sands), dis­tances tra­versed, and sit­u­a­tions encoun­tered. A pro­logue, exhib­it­ed in the Carnegie Inter­na­tion­al, 57^th Edi­tion, 20183 revealed that the ​“tur­bu­lent forces at work in Leonard’s pho­tographs, how­ev­er, are far more opaque, com­plex, and interbed­ded than any­thing we can see. Col­ored dun by earth and sed­i­ment, the Rio Grande sculpts a shift­ing ter­rain.”4 The cul­mi­na­tion, approx­i­mate­ly five-hun­dred pho­tographs oper­at­ing togeth­er as an art work, will be exhib­it­ed as Al Rio/To The Riv­er in 2021 at MUDAM: The Con­tem­po­rary Art Muse­um of Lux­em­bourg, before trav­el­ing to the Musée d’Art Mod­erne de Paris and on to venues in Mex­i­co, the Unit­ed States, and else­where. A two-vol­ume pub­li­ca­tion will accom­pa­ny the exhibition—edited by Tim John­son, poet, writer, edi­tor and project collaborator—to include the pho­tographs and an assem­blage of essays, con­ver­sa­tions and mate­r­i­al to acti­vate the wide range of his­to­ries and rela­tion­ships immersed with­in the rio.

With­in the Col­lege of Archi­tec­ture at Texas Tech Uni­ver­si­ty in Lub­bock is a trans­dis­ci­pli­nary field pro­gram called Land Arts of the Amer­i­can West ded­i­cat­ed to expand­ing aware­ness of the inter­sec­tion of human con­struc­tion and the evolv­ing nature of our plan­et. Using Land art, or Earth art, gen­er­a­tive­ly as ges­tures emerg­ing from ground and extend­ing through com­plex social and eco­log­i­cal process­es, the pro­gram exam­ines ges­tures small and grand direct­ing atten­tion towards pot­sherds, trash, tracks, set­tle­ments, art­works, and mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al instal­la­tions. Land Arts cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties to work in rela­tion to the com­plex forces that shape the Amer­i­can West by sit­u­at­ing this work with­in a con­tin­u­ous tra­di­tion of land-based oper­a­tions that is thou­sands of years old. As a semes­ter long field pro­gram that usu­al­ly camps for over fifty days while trav­el­ing near­ly 9,700 kilo­me­ters (6,000 miles) over land through­out the Amer­i­can West, Land Arts hinges on the pri­ma­cy of first-per­son expe­ri­ence and the real­iza­tion that human/land rela­tion­ships are rarely singular.

In the Spring of 2020, after the Land Arts admis­sion of ten won­der­ful­ly diverse and qual­i­fied par­tic­i­pants, we began ask­ing: How does a field pro­gram adapt to a pan­dem­ic? Sci­ence fic­tion sce­nar­ios came to mind of bio-haz­ard-suit­ed researchers, roam­ing the desert, exam­in­ing the residue of humanity’s engage­ment with the nat­ur­al world. Yet it was emi­nent­ly clear such approach­es would not ade­quate­ly pro­tect par­tic­i­pants from covid-19 uncer­tain­ty, nor would they shield the vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties and lands—disadvantaged by sys­temic eco­nom­ic injus­tice and lim­it­ed health infrastructure—that we rou­tine­ly encounter. Rather than mag­ni­fy the mount­ing risks of trav­el in this time, Land Arts 2020 need­ed to adapt. The oppor­tu­ni­ty for adap­ta­tion arrived through an invi­ta­tion from Zoe Leonard and Tim John­son to con­struct a mean­der map describ­ing the ever-chang­ing tra­jec­to­ries of the rio they were examining.

While vig­or­ous debate and research con­tin­ue, it is com­mon­ly under­stood that ances­tral peo­ples inhab­it­ed the Amer­i­c­as as ear­ly as fif­teen-thou­sand years ago. Evi­dence in the Low­er Pecos region mark that activ­i­ty between four and five-thou­sand years ago. Also along the Rio Mean­der Map upriv­er are the ances­tral lands of the Tam­pa­choa (Man­sos), Tigua, Pesca­do, Sumas, Yoli (Con­cho), La Jun­tas, Chisos, Jumanos, East­ern Pueb­los, and the Chir­ic­ahua Apache, Mescalero Apache, and Lipan Apache Nde Nations. Down­riv­er the Kiikaapoi (Kick­apoo), Tap Pil­am Coahuil­te­can Nation, Alaza­pas, Raya­dos (Bor­ra­dos), Somi Se’k (Sto’k Gna) (Carrizo/Comecrudo), and Tamaulipeco. The Numunuu (Comanche Nation) also crossed the rio at sev­er­al points dur­ing their activ­i­ties south into Mex­i­co in the 1800s.5

Land Arts 2020 ADAPTATION con­duct­ed a trans­dis­ci­pli­nary deep research, non-trav­el­ing, stu­dio and sem­i­nar to con­struct the Rio Mean­der Map of the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande, as it marks the inter­na­tion­al bor­der from Ciu­dad Juarez/El Paso to the Gulf of Mex­i­co, reveal­ing the undu­lat­ing and shift­ing course of the riv­er over time. Inspired by mean­der maps pro­duced by Harold Fisk and team in the 1930s and 1940s of The Allu­vial Val­ley of the Low­er Mis­sis­sip­pi,6 this map required exten­sive bina­tion­al and mul­ti­lin­gual research into the his­to­ry of riv­er geom­e­try and map­ping as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of dynam­ic ecosys­tems mod­i­fied over time by wide ranges of human and non­hu­man con­struc­tion. To com­plete the rio mean­der map, par­tic­i­pants and affil­i­at­ed guests divid­ed across pri­ma­ry work­ing groups of RESEARCHERS, with sub­groups for Span­ish and Eng­lish lan­guages, and MAPPERS with sub­groups for GeoSpa­tial Syn­the­sis and Graph­ic Pro­duc­tion. The groups facil­i­tat­ed inde­pen­dent research actions and col­lec­tive pro­duc­tion that was aggre­gat­ed and man­aged through dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and file shar­ing. Week­ly activ­i­ty was logged through pro­duc­tion post­ing and feed­back cycles sup­port­ed by com­mon dis­cus­sion sec­tions. Guest ses­sions with project advi­sors also expand­ed the range of dia­log and production.

The Rio Mean­der Map is a liv­ing map of a liv­ing riv­er; a dynam­ic por­trait of per­sis­tent­ly shift­ing geo­graph­ic, social, and polit­i­cal conditions.

Cur­rent­ly, as the rio enters Ciu­dad Juarez/El Paso cut­ting between Las Sier­ras de los Man­sos (Franklin Moun­tains) and Cer­ro Bola—the moun­tain pass that El Paso del Norte was named for in 1659—nearly all of its waters are divert­ed. First at the Amer­i­can Diver­sion Dam and then at a bend a few miles on at the Inter­na­tion­al Diver­sion Dam. The water, allo­cat­ed by 1906 treaty, flows from the for­mer into the Amer­i­can Canal and from the lat­er into Ace­quia Madre where it feeds an elab­o­rate mir­rored yet unequal net­work of canals, ditch­es and drains that sup­port the agri­cul­tur­al val­ley run­ning for near­ly 140 kilo­me­ters (90 miles). To com­bat irreg­u­lar flows, silt­ing and flood­ing, caused by upriv­er dams, anoth­er treaty in 1933 laid the legal frame­work for a mas­sive rec­ti­fi­ca­tion project—straightening, short­en­ing, and chan­nel­iz­ing the rio through­out the length of this val­ley. Since 1938 the rio chan­nel has remained most­ly an infre­quent hydro­log­i­cal ghost with­in a near­ly six-hun­dred-foot-wide flood­way con­tain­ing par­al­lel lev­ees and the inter­na­tion­al bor­der run­ning down the cen­ter. With­in the urban heart of the twinned cities the cen­tral chan­nel is lined with con­crete. For the major­i­ty of its dis­tance, it is a colos­sal homog­e­nized earth­work. Walk­ing or trav­el­ing across any of the inter­na­tion­al bridges reveal the bar­ren void rein­forc­ing incom­plete or defec­tive notions about the dry­ness of the region. While it cer­tain­ly is arid, annu­al­ly receiv­ing less than 25 cen­time­ters (10 inch­es) of pre­cip­i­ta­tion, more res­onate sound­ings come from the expan­sive sys­tem of chan­nels that enable an irri­gat­ed green patch­work to run from the pop­u­lat­ed zone below Loma Blanca/San Elizario down to Fort Quit­man and Ban­deras. The por­trait of the rio here is com­plex, inter­wo­ven and co-evolved with­in an irri­gat­ed belt craft­ed by geol­o­gy, hydrog­ra­phy, agriculture.

Soon after word spread pub­licly of the Land Arts 2020 ADAPTATION, inter­est par­tic­i­pat­ing or con­nect­ing to the project quick­ly mate­ri­al­ized. The oppor­tu­ni­ty struck a chord with peo­ple across a wide dis­ci­pli­nary and geo­graph­ic swath, radi­at­ing through­out Texas, from Lub­bock to the bor­der, then east­ward through New York to Seville, War­saw and Stock­holm, west­ward through Utah and Cal­i­for­nia to Han­no, Japan, and south­ward to Peru and Chile, span­ning an eigh­teen-hour time zone dif­fer­en­tial. In total near­ly fifty peo­ple were involved. Con­tribut­ing par­tic­i­pants con­sist­ed of twen­ty-three enrolled under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate stu­dents and inde­pen­dent schol­ars, which were sup­port­ed by a core group of pri­ma­ry pro­duc­tion voic­es, con­tribut­ing advi­sors, and dis­tant wit­ness observers. The com­mit­ment and diver­si­ty of the group was hum­bling and vital for the con­struc­tion of a col­lec­tive por­trait of this liv­ing and dynam­ic line.

Rio Mean­der Map tells time. Embed­ded with­in lay­ered folds and jump cuts of depo­si­tion and ero­sion, time is marked with­in ges­tures pil­ing up and scrap­ing away. Such a map con­sid­ers more than imme­di­ate sur­face con­di­tions and seeks to reveal interbed­ded geo­log­ic structures—the grain of Earth—the rio tra­vers­es or carves through. Time sig­na­tures extend from gun­shot10 imme­di­a­cy to Pre­cam­bri­an11 rock matri­ces. From per­sis­tent present to per­haps half Earth’s age. The con­cen­tra­tion of tem­po­ral diver­si­ty is greater in high­er ele­va­tions near El Paso del Norte evi­denced in a geo­log­ic record that spans from present through the Ceno­zoic, Meso­zoic, Pale­o­zoic to Pre­cam­bri­an Eras. Mov­ing down­riv­er to La Jun­tas de los Rios the record dis­si­pates at the Devon­ian peri­od just over four-hun­dred-mil­lion years ago. At Maderas del Car­men in Big Bend the lim­it is with­in the Ear­ly Cre­ta­ceous peri­od one-hun­dred-forty-five-mil­lion years ago. La Pre­sa Amis­tad mark­ing the edge of canyon coun­try holds steady with that zone, while La Pre­sa Fal­con marks a drop in ele­va­tion and topog­ra­phy dat­ing only to the Eocene epoch of fifty-six-mil­lion years ago. The delta through Matamoros/Brownsville to Boca Chi­ca are made up of sed­i­ments from the Holocene epoch, twelve-thou­sand-years ago to the present Anthro­pocene where rock records are inter­wo­ven with human impact.

The ques­tion of the Anthro­pocene, the aggre­ga­tion of the geo­log­ic record with per­sis­tent human activ­i­ty, is more than sci­en­tif­ic tus­sle.12 For archi­tects it is a stark indi­ca­tor our work is nev­er autonomous. It is always sit­u­at­ed. With­in streams of mate­r­i­al, eco­nom­ic, and social flows. Into expan­sive net­works of resource feeds and waste streams. Exam­i­na­tions of the tra­jec­to­ry of these flows—towards jus­tice13 perhaps—must be inter­twined in all of our work.

Near­ly half of the ter­ri­to­ry with­in the Rio Mean­der Map exists with­in the Chi­huahuan Desert con­tain­ing xeric shrub­lands with life­forms adapt­ed to extreme con­di­tions of topo­graph­ic and atmos­pher­ic dif­fer­en­tials. After La Pre­sa Amis­tad the land breaks into the arid inte­ri­or plains of Tamauli­pan mezquital with xero­phyt­ic shrub, mesquite and oak forests before giv­ing way to the sub­trop­i­cal grass and shrub­lands of Tamauli­pas pastizal.

Cen­tral to the pro­duc­tion of the Rio Mean­der Map was devel­op­ing a struc­ture that lever­aged and required a syn­thet­ic non-har­mo­nious voice. While the col­lec­tive effort was deeply inclu­sive, it did not seek uni­ty or equal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The chal­lenges of oper­at­ing remote­ly dur­ing a glob­al pan­dem­ic adapt­ed the ped­a­gogy of equal weight. We began by antic­i­pat­ing there would be times when group mem­bers were not able to car­ry an equal load. Rather than see­ing that as prob­lem to over­come with pre-pan­dem­ic reme­di­a­tion, here group ener­gy and col­lec­tive voice ral­lied to acti­vate the inher­ent dif­fer­en­tials present. Instead of a gen­er­al­iz­ing approach we sought to open het­eroge­nous man­i­fes­ta­tions of time, nar­ra­tive, and geog­ra­phy. This was built into the com­po­si­tion of the group. In to the con­di­tions of our work. And, into the mul­ti­tudes of voice radi­at­ing from the project, the ter­ri­to­ry, and it’s peo­ple.14

After more than a cen­tu­ry of Span­ish colo­nial incur­sion, con­trol, and vio­lent15 sub­ju­ga­tion of indige­nous Pueblo peo­ple in what remains known as New Mex­i­co, pro­found risk of cul­ture loss and sur­vival led to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The tra­di­tion­al­ly autonomous Pueblo com­mu­ni­ties were unit­ed into simul­ta­ne­ous action by Po’pay of Ohkay Owingeh to dri­ve Span­ish forces and set­tlers from San­ta Fe south along the rio to Paso del Norte. This line of force is wide­ly held as the only suc­cess­ful upris­ing against a col­o­niz­ing pow­er in North Amer­i­ca and cel­e­brat­ed as vital to the preser­va­tion of Native cul­ture, tra­di­tions and lands. It is a line of force and time that con­tin­ues to res­onate, three-hun­dred-forty years lat­er.16

From Ban­deras the rio extends south­east by south pick­ing its way through remote and rough canyons between the Quit­man Moun­tains and Sier­ra San Mar­tin del Bor­ra­cho. Fed by drainages such as Arroyo Agua las Vacas and Goat Canyon, Arroyo Pare­don and Hog Canyon. Past farms, eji­dos, ran­chos and com­mu­ni­ties with place names Guer­ra, Bram­lett, Pilares, Baeza and San Anto­nio de Bra­vo. Through crossings—mostly informal—called Bob Love, Paso el Cubano, Low­er Los Fres­nos, Come­dor, San Anto­nio, Rui­dosa, Sparks, La Pres­sa, and Vado. Through this sec­tion, present con­di­tions often pull all waters from its chan­nel, leav­ing it a mas­sive dry arroyo hold­ing the mem­o­ry of past water frozen in time. Yet agri­cul­tur­al pres­ence, or its traces, begin to fill the val­ley between Adobes and El Ramireño with most of it occur­ring on the rios right bank, or west­ern side. These fields how­ev­er are not fed by Rio Bravo/Rio Grande. Instead, irri­ga­tion water flows ten miles upstream from the Rio Con­chos in the Canal Prin­ci­pal Mar­gen Izquier­da set into the top edge of the flood­plain. The fer­tile plain expands wide­ly at La Jun­tas de los Rios, the con­flu­ence of Rio Con­chos and Rio Bravo/Rio Grande. For some this is the rebirth of the pri­ma­ry riv­er as often the major­i­ty of down­stream flow emerges from the Con­chos water­shed. Over­lay­ing the tan­gled knots of his­toric mean­ders with­in this sec­tion is an earth­en rec­ti­fi­ca­tion effort com­plet­ed in the 1970s straight­en­ing and pro­vid­ing con­tain­ment vol­ume for flood lev­el flows to course between the linked towns of Oji­na­ga, Chi­huahua and Pre­sidio, Texas. The dynam­ic rio course turns loose again after Fort Leaton and con­tin­ues through Eji­do Monte Mar­queño, Palo­mas, and Red­ford before cut­ting into more remote canyon coun­try. The rich­ness of this val­ley con­flu­ence and its his­to­ry attest to the deep pres­ence of indige­nous pueblo cul­tures thriv­ing here long before first con­tact17 with Europeans.

Is it pos­si­ble to cre­ate a map that avoids, or acknowl­edges, the impe­r­i­al, colo­nial, and mil­i­tary imper­a­tives they emerge from?19 How might its sto­ry devel­op? What time­lines are held? Are cultivated?

Ear­ly on in the process of build­ing the rio mean­der map, ques­tions and meth­ods of telling time proved cen­tral. In addi­tion to syn­the­siz­ing infor­ma­tion geo-spa­tial­ly, aggre­gat­ing research in time was a per­sis­tent objec­tive. What appeared as chrono­log­i­cal time­line, one begin­ning with the ages of rock, min­er­als and Earth itself, tra­versed broad evo­lu­tions and legal treaty minu­ti­ae. It per­sist­ed as provo­ca­tion of nar­ra­tive voice and design lan­guage, as sin­gu­lar pri­ma­ry focus points or mul­ti-scalar, mul­ti-dimen­sion­al index­i­cal reference.

With­in the Big Bend the rio’s course gen­er­al­ly cuts its way through tight topo­graph­ic canyons that rise and curl along­side, and across, its tra­jec­to­ry. Moments when bound­aries and slope ease, braid­ing reoc­curs before gath­er­ing. This par­tic­u­lar­ly rugged and harsh ter­ri­to­ry, being remote from both south and north, has remained rel­a­tive­ly iso­lat­ed for cen­turies. Per­haps it was the deft eques­tri­an pow­er of the Comanche that made them the only peo­ples who defined this region as a through­way for larg­er con­ti­nen­tal ambi­tions. Tra­di­tion­al mod­ern ranch­ing and farm­ing in the area has always been stretched thin, fur­ther open­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty for con­ser­va­tion, yet it was not until 1944 that the U.S. estab­lished Big Bend Nation­al Park and 1994 that Mex­i­co cre­at­ed Par­que Nacional Cañon de San­ta Ele­na and Nat­ur­al Pro­te­gi­da Maderas del Car­men. Here the rio is marked by a rib­bon of ripar­i­an veg­e­ta­tion hold­ing to the bot­tom of drainages such as Tornil­lo Creek, Arroyo Tem­po­ral and Arroyo Avis­pas. Archae­o­log­i­cal traces also dot this seg­ment evi­denc­ing zones of dis­tri­b­u­tion and lay­ers of occu­pa­tion inter­weav­ing biologic/human and geo­log­ic time scales.

Spo­ken lan­guage with­in bor­der cul­ture is as inter­wo­ven as rio mean­der­ings. Pre­dom­i­nate­ly Span­ish, yet not sin­gu­lar, switch­ing freely as nec­es­sary. Respond­ing to fric­tions and alliances. Behind each Span­ish or Eng­lish name lies indige­nous under­stand­ings for places, fea­tures and forces that have been over­tak­en, dis­placed, or unseen.22 Giv­en the poly-lin­gual nature of the sub­ject and the group of researchers the emerg­ing lan­guage of the map is voiced in a sim­i­lar­ly fused amalgam.

To cre­ate the work, the col­lec­tive pro­duc­ers also need­ed to craft the process­es nec­es­sary to bring all the voic­es, con­tent, and mate­r­i­al togeth­er. Con­stant­ly test­ing and refin­ing research and devel­op­ment meth­ods as the rio mean­der map came into view.

Rio as inter­na­tion­al bound­ary spawned a lega­cy of sur­vey­ing and diplo­mat­ic chal­lenges requir­ing exten­sive agree­ments and adjust­ments over time.

Cre­at­ing the Rio Mean­der Map required its mak­ers to iden­ti­fy and cre­ate geospa­tial con­ti­nu­ities where frac­tures and dis­con­nec­tion exist­ed before. While the bina­tion­al Inter­na­tion­al Bound­ary and Water Com­mis­sion was cre­at­ed by treaty to adju­di­cate man­age­ment issues through sub­se­quent treaties and agree­ments, their records tend towards res­o­lu­tion of spe­cif­ic incon­sis­ten­cies to bor­der con­fig­u­ra­tions. They seek to sim­pli­fy, cod­i­fy and for­ti­fy a sin­gle line. Records of their actions, in earth­works and legal doc­u­ments, demon­strate their quest for effi­cien­cy. Our charge, to cre­ate a liv­ing por­trait of a liv­ing riv­er, sought to under­stand the com­plex inter­wo­ven con­di­tions of hydrol­o­gy, geol­o­gy, cul­ture, and lan­guage evolv­ing with time. The effort to reveal matri­ces of dynam­ic char­ac­ter was also lim­it­ed by our time with­in an aca­d­e­m­ic semes­ter and our remote mode of oper­at­ing. Through all we sought to com­pli­cate rather than essen­tial­ize. To describe the myr­i­ad man­i­fes­ta­tions of rio mean­der in time as sets of dynam­ic, tran­si­to­ry and evolv­ing con­di­tions. Not a fixed line, or sym­bol, or math­e­mat­i­cal puz­zle to be solved. With­in the lines of this rio, and this land, are interbed­ded his­to­ries knit­ting and stitch­ing togeth­er bor­der cul­ture, bor­der land, bor­der water.23

Mak­ing these efforts pos­si­ble began with geospa­tial­ly dig­i­tiz­ing the rio in over two-hun­dred his­toric maps dat­ing from the 1800s to present. This occurred with­in QGIS, a free and open-source geo­graph­ic infor­ma­tion sys­tem that also allowed for the aggre­ga­tion and syn­the­sis of an abun­dance of oth­er pub­lic source data from a wide spec­trum of archives, orga­ni­za­tions, and agen­cies. This was our pri­ma­ry agent of geospa­tial syn­the­sis.24

Pri­or to exit­ing the deep canyons of Big Bend, the rio enters La Pre­sa Amis­tad, or Amis­tad Reser­voir. Long before the water body is vis­i­ble or leg­i­ble, a slight shift in cur­rent and grow­ing hor­i­zon­tal­i­ty in the sur­face can be reg­is­tered. Instead of con­tin­u­ing down­ward flow, the water’s sur­face lev­els chart­ing a line inde­pen­dent of the ancient tra­jec­to­ry of land below. The datum is con­trolled at the near­ly ten-kilo­me­ter (six mile) embank­ment dam bridg­ing the states of Coahuila and Texas just below the con­flu­ence with the Dev­ils Riv­er and over forty-eight kilo­me­ters (thir­ty miles) down­riv­er. Built and com­mis­sioned between 1963 and 1969 for the ​“con­trol of floods and con­ser­va­tion and reg­u­la­tion of waters.”25

Arche­o­log­i­cal resources with­in the area were known long before the impound­ing of waters in the reser­voir. Exca­va­tions of the Fate Bell Shel­ter in Semi­nole Canyon began in 1932.26 With approval for the dam the Amis­tad Arche­o­log­i­cal Sal­vage Pro­gram evolved between 1958 and 1969 in an attempt to wit­ness and record sites to be impact­ed. Sub­se­quent research has revealed sites with­in the Low­er Pecos region to have pro­found con­ti­nen­tal impor­tance con­tain­ing records of human activ­i­ty dat­ing from four to five-thou­sand years before the com­mon era.27 While pow­er­ful exam­ples remain above the crest of the dam at 351 meters (1,152 feet) above sea lev­el hun­dreds were lost under the water body. Con­trolled release gen­er­ates hydro­elec­tric pow­er for each coun­try, from par­al­lel inde­pen­dent plants, before flow­ing past Arroyo El Buey and McK­ees Creek, under Acuña/Del Rio Inter­na­tion­al Bridge, and fur­ther downriver.

The advance­ment of map mak­ing is inter­twined with the his­to­ry of mil­i­tary empires, glob­al com­mod­i­ty trade, colo­nial­ism, and human exploita­tion. The map as evi­dence of pow­er, nar­ra­tive­ly and oper­a­tional­ly, extends from the first car­to­graph­ic ges­tures through the evo­lu­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Trans­verse Mer­ca­tor coor­di­nate sys­tem to the World Geo­det­ic Sys­tem (WGS). Cur­rent­ly U.S. Defense Depart­ment cre­at­ed WGS 1984 EPSG:4326 enables every­thing from mobile Glob­al Posi­tion­ing Sys­tems to remote mil­i­tary map fir­ing and drone nav­i­ga­tion. It is a coor­di­nate pro­jec­tion sys­tem of uni­form squares and par­al­lel grids dis­tort­ing Earth geom­e­try to facil­i­tate rapid math­e­mat­i­cal posi­tion cal­cu­la­tions. Ear­li­er pro­jec­tions were based on equal sub­di­vi­sions of lon­gi­tu­di­nal lines at the equa­tor con­verg­ing at the poles. North-south lines in these sys­tems are not par­al­lel and reflect plan­e­tary cur­va­ture. Hence, the coor­di­nate ref­er­ence sys­tem pro­jec­tion for the Rio Mean­der Map is set to Mex­i­co ITRF2008 EPSG:6372 to evi­dence the dynam­ic and rela­tion­al shift­ing of car­to­graph­ic north.

Ampli­fy­ing the mul­ti­ple geo­graph­ic datasets that were fold­ed into this dynam­ic and liv­ing por­trait, it was also vital for the map to include mul­ti­ple points of view, tem­po­ral­i­ties, and sub­jec­tiv­i­ties in graph­ic and nar­ra­tive form.

From Del Rio and Acuña30 the rio trends heav­i­ly south by slight­ly east as it pass­es through Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass, Lare­do and Nue­vo Lare­do, drop­ping only 158 meters (519 feet) in ele­va­tion in just over 300 kilo­me­ters (under 200 miles) before start­ing to lev­el out again at San Ygna­cio, 60 kilo­me­ters (37 miles) upriv­er from La Pre­sa Fal­cón. The dis­tances of trav­el and impound­ment com­press­ing and expand­ing. Fal­con Dam was autho­rized by Inter­na­tion­al Bound­ary and Water Com­mis­sion treaty in 1944 and was con­struct­ed between 1950 and 1954. Flood con­trol was a cen­tral jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, and cause for sub­se­quent relo­ca­tions, dis­place­ments, and sub­mer­sions.31 As it was com­plet­ed Hur­ri­cane Alice struck cre­at­ing major upriv­er flood­ing that was stopped by the new reser­voir spar­ing down­stream dis­as­ter and ​“prov­ing” its neces­si­ty.32 That event became vital to the plan­ning and autho­riza­tion for La Pre­sa Amis­tad the fol­low­ing decade. Where Amis­tad marks the dis­si­pa­tion of canyon topog­ra­phy and a north-east­ward turn of Bal­cones Fault, Fal­cón is the last ver­ti­cal thresh­old of the rio before the coastal plain. Mean­der impound­ment here is for agri­cul­tur­al con­sis­ten­cy and yet anoth­er attempt of human con­trol over hydro­log­ic sys­tems. Fal­cón also lands just east of the 100^th Merid­i­an, the so-called dry line John Wes­ley Pow­ell used to mark the lim­it of arid­i­ty defin­ing the Amer­i­can West.33 It is cli­ma­to­log­i­cal thresh­old reg­is­tered in the abil­i­ty of veg­e­ta­tion to shift the ter­ri­to­r­i­al col­or palette from yel­low-brown towards green.

Pro­duc­tion of the Rio Mean­der Map grav­i­tat­ed around cen­tral ques­tions of col­or palettes and the leg­i­bil­i­ty to reveal trans­for­ma­tions over time. While this began with the geom­e­try and syn­the­sis of rio chan­nel bound­aries, it grew to include larg­er con­texts. With access to low-and high-res­o­lu­tion dig­i­tal ele­va­tion mod­el (DEM) datasets, a cen­tral ques­tion became how to uti­lize and acti­vate land­form infor­ma­tion with­in the map. When first loaded DEM files appear as deep space weath­er impres­sions, vague and neb­u­lous. Yet, as dis­play set­tings and details are tuned the weight and geo­met­ric speci­fici­ty these raster files con­tain is astound­ing. In addi­tion to topo­graph­ic geom­e­try the data lay­ers have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be col­or cod­ed by ele­va­tion to more strik­ing­ly reveal topo­graph­ic def­i­n­i­tion. This prompt­ed an extend­ed peri­od of explo­ration and test­ing to draw out ques­tions such as, should the map col­or palette approach verisimil­i­tude to respond to the shift­ing ter­res­tri­al hues of reds and yel­lows in the west through browns and grays into green and ulti­mate­ly blue of the sea? While there was didac­tic poten­tial for such dis­tri­b­u­tions, inverse propo­si­tions also opened. Rather than seek to match or emu­late the vis­i­ble spec­trum of ​“true-col­or,” how might pre­sen­ta­tions in ​“false” or ​“pseu­do col­or” enable inten­si­fied focus, leg­i­bil­i­ty, and char­ac­ter? Mov­ing through a wide range of options, the group homed in on a palette of dark to metal­lic cop­per that allows a spec­trum of blue mean­der to pop. The oppor­tu­ni­ty became one of reduc­ing vari­ables to height­en legibility.

Through­out the semes­ter, week­ly read­ing respons­es were post­ed asyn­chro­nous­ly to a mes­sage board pro­mot­ing reflec­tion and exchange. This activ­i­ty also had the ben­e­fit of becom­ing tes­ta­ment to the evo­lu­tion of our col­lec­tive under­stand­ings. In the final phas­es of devel­op­ment, a ques­tion reap­peared about the neces­si­ty of not reveal­ing too much, of hold­ing some­thing back, of what is impos­si­ble to know. In ubiq­ui­tous map tech­nolo­gies com­mon in our con­tem­po­rary con­nect­ed world, clouds rarely appear in satel­lite imagery. This is not because there are lucky satel­lite pilots avoid­ing weath­er events. Great labor, and algo­rith­mic pro­cess­ing, con­spire to sub­tract these aque­ous vapor fea­tures from desired, and con­struct­ed, views. What clouds will this map con­tain? Instead of sim­u­lat­ing or car­i­ca­tur­ing weath­er, we were able to access pre-processed image data reveal­ing not only clouds across our study area, but typo­log­i­cal dis­tinc­tions between those in the arid west­ern and coastal east­ern extents of the project. Short­ly there­after, the reflec­tive read­ing respons­es oper­at­ing as jour­nal entries were cast into the clouds to pro­vide a tem­po­ral index of dia­logue around the themes and ques­tions inter­twined with­in the mak­ing of the map.35

After Fal­cón, the rio turns east­ward in its quest to reach the Gulf of Mex­i­co. Snaking through Ciu­dad Miguel Alemán and Roma, through wide fer­tile plains. Past ancient ban­co, or oxbow, for­ma­tions. Many hold­ing ves­ti­gial con­nec­tions to water tables from below, and pat­terns of ancient topo­graph­ic drainage. These dis­con­tigu­ous mean­ders also define lim­its of set­tle­ments, infra­struc­ture and cul­ti­vat­ed fields. The land-water bal­ance shift­ing as the rio pass­es Reynosa and Hidal­go, Pro­gres­so and Nue­vo Pro­gres­so, Eji­do La Briga­da and the Resaca De La Pal­ma World Bird­ing Cen­ter and between Mata­moros and Brownsville. The for­mer appear­ing to hold slight­ly more pur­chase on high­er ground. The lat­er rid­dled with canals, ditch­es and drains that clear­ly ser­vice agri­cul­tur­al lands and attempt dewa­ter­ing stability.

From South­most the rio path winds through increas­ing estu­ar­ies, water-land-scapes that appear as bas relief carved over mil­len­nia. Ter­ra fir­ma gives way to open ocean were con­nec­tiv­i­ty to the plan­e­tary water cycle becomes undeniable.

The Rio Mean­der Map remains in devel­op­ment as it moves from stu­dio to post-pro­duc­tion and final coor­di­na­tion for print­ing in the Al Rio/To the Riv­er pub­li­ca­tion in 2021. In addi­tion to that audi­ence and expo­sure, the map will live beyond its mak­ing to two oth­er ways. In the near-term dur­ing Spring 2021 it will be the sub­ject of the 2020 Land Arts ADAPTATION Exhi­bi­tion at the Muse­um of Texas Tech Uni­ver­si­ty. The annu­al Land Arts exhi­bi­tion is designed to bring stu­dent work to larg­er audi­ences and to require syn­the­sis mov­ing from field­work to pub­lic leg­i­bil­i­ty. Giv­en the pan­dem­ic this may well become an online exhi­bi­tion, which will fur­ther facil­i­tate the map’s after­life. Over the long term Rio Mean­der Map will live on at the new Bor­der Con­sor­tium being estab­lished by POST (Project for Oper­a­tive Spa­tial Tech­nolo­gies) at the Texas Tech Col­lege of Archi­tec­ture in El Paso. Giv­en that most of the sources with­in the map come from pub­lic assets, the inten­tion is to pack­age and assem­ble the mate­r­i­al in an online for­mat to fur­ther its devel­op­ment and make the syn­the­sized GIS data avail­able to oth­ers for use in projects and oppor­tu­ni­ties we can­not begin to antic­i­pate. Con­tin­u­ing per­sis­tent evo­lu­tion of the Rio Mean­der Map.