In celebration of Earth Month, the Library is thrilled to launch Dear Body of Water exhibitions in collaboration with GREEN (Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environment Network) to celebrate and honor one of Earth’s most precious and essential resources—water.
Inspired by the global Dear Body of Water project, these interrelated exhibitions hope to grow water consciousness around Georgetown University.
The act of collectively addressing bodies of water as living beings (as in, "Dear body of water...") hopes to reframe water in the climate crisis by focusing not on floods, droughts, rising sea levels, or retreating rivers, but instead on the love and respect we have for our waterways. Through this love, we can begin to show our care for water by making changes to protect it and to improve our earth.
The exhibition in the Fourth-Floor Community Gallery showcases visual art and writing created by Georgetown students that express love and appreciation for bodies of water as fellow beings on this Earth and cultivate care for watersheds.
The student exhibition complements the Dear Body of Water exhibit in the Booth Family Center for Special Collections's Fairchild Art Gallery spaces on the 5th floor of the Library, which brings together items from all areas of Special Collections. The works explore water as a resource, the symbolic and religious dimensions of water, climate issues related to water, and recreational aspects of water.
Please join us for an opening reception on Wednesday, April 23 from 4:00-5:15 to hear students read from their poetry and talk about their art on display, and to hear Booth curators talk about the exhibition on the fifth floor. Please RSVP for the opening reception, and we’ll add you to the calendar invitation. Refreshments will be served!
In addition to exploring the beautiful artworks on exhibit, take a moment to visit the “Recommended Reads” display on the third floor of Lauinger to peruse selections from the library’s book collection related to water in literature and art, water security and scarcity, and issues related to water in politics, public policy, history, and more.
The exhibitions were inspired by a visit to Georgetown from the founder of the Dear Body of Water initiative, Professor Gretchen E. Henderson, in March 2024 for a lecture and book signing for her latest publication, “Life in the Tar Seeps: A Spiraling Ecology from a Dying Sea.” You are invited to follow a WaterWalk curated by Gretchen here (a downloadable map will be made available with the launch of GU’s exhibition opening).
If you’d like to write a love letter to a beloved river, ocean, aquifer, creek, pond, or other body of water, visit the Dear Body of Water site or join us at the Earth Day Spring Festival on the Leavey Esplanade on Tuesday, April 22, 1:00 - 3:00 pm to fill out a Dear Body of Water postcard.