Dive into the World of Water at ICL

Dive into the world of water at the Ignacio Community Library. Enter the library to see an augmented reality sandbox that allows participants to shape their own watershed. "We Are Water" intends to start a broader conversation about what water means to Southwest Colorado. This edition of the Local News Network is brought to you by The Payroll Department and Happy Pappy's Pizza-N-Wings. I'm Connor Shreve. For the next two months, Ignacio Community Library is the host site for "We Are Water," a traveling exhibit that hopes to connect the community by encouraging the public to share their stories about water.

Well, so, "We Are Water." The subtitle of it is "Connecting Communities." And so the whole idea is helping people have conversations about water in the Southwest. Learning about it, its effects, the absence of water, and just how it impacts our citizens.

Library Director Marcia Vining says the Ignacio Community Library is a great conduit for what the exhibit is trying to accomplish.

Well, part of it is just like you said, education. But the other piece is part of our mission is bringing people and ideas together and helping people develop that conversation. Understanding of other people's experience with water. It's a pretty hot topic here, and so just helping people to have good conversation about it and develop understanding.

The exhibit has four parts, each highlighting a different theme. Water and life, water use, water rights, along with water in the landscape and our community. And organizers want that community element to play a major role.

We want to learn from the Ignacio community how water is important to them. So some of these exhibits that are at the library here for the next couple of months are hoping to get artwork and poetry or stories or anything from the community about how water is important to them. We want to learn from you more than we want you to learn from us.

One way to do that is by asking the community to share what water means to them, whether that's a personal story or experience, or even a unique approach to thinking about the resource. Vining hopes that interactive element, what you share, becomes a part of the exhibit's story wall.

So one of the pieces, and we've got it right back here. We've got the video, and we can upload stories almost immediately. So we're looking for people just to share their experiences with water. It's one thing to hear about the Front Range or other locations in the country, but we want people from the Southwest, from our area, to share their experiences with water.

The free, traveling exhibit is accessible in English, Spanish, and Navajo at the Ignacio Community Library until October 29th. Details on this and other stories are available at durangolocal.news. Thanks for watching this edition of the Local News Network. I'm Connor Shreve.