Where Water Flows Uphill takes its primary inspiration from the local Cache Le Poudre River and all the

generous creatures, currents, and characteristics that live in and around it. The artist, Wes Bruce, and the other creatives behind this project, consider the river a dear friend and teacher, and after spending countless hours wandering the banks, watching the water, skipping stones, swimming, and climbing trees along the bends, the River revealed to Wes and his friends twelve character archetypes. Wes and the creative team learned from these characters and then threaded them into the project to create the artwork, the film and the music. The twelve character archetypes are: Wildflower, Willow, Cottonwood, Snake, Panther, Horse, Sun, Moon, Earth, River, Breath, and Paradox. Can you find them throughout the space? Has the River revealed them to you as well?

The installation itself is a sort of fictional world where the characters live and interact, and by entering the installation, you (yes you reading this) are invited into relationship with the characters, their corresponding spaces, feelings, virtues, poetry, and language. And as you explore, you’ll find yourself in the depths of your own hero’s journey, just as actor Lucy Coons as the Wildflower does in the feature film hidden within the installation (Sidenote: The film is a multi-curvilinear, three-screen, non-narrative art and dance film, that is projected on the inside of a dome, and as far as we can tell, it’s the first and only film of its kind on Earth, haha. If you find another film like it on Earth or any other planet, please let us know.)

Across time and cultures, water has been a metaphor for memory, language, the subconscious, and the depths of the human soul, and as such, we invite you to explore a some watery ideas we love:

What if we all have a river flowing within us... What if your whole life was a river... ???

As you drift through the space, you’ll find well-lit, buoyant, upbeat, outer-life areas to eddy into, and if you keep drifting, you might submerge into other darker realms, where your literal journey might connect with a metaphorical one as you venture bravely into the depths of the unknown and your own inner-life.

 In this installation, to journey outward, is to journey inward. To ask a question, is to turn a key in a door.

Can art be a mirror to better understand yourself? Can film be a key to open a new room within you?

As part of this investigation between the river and the human experience, Wes also created a fictional water language for the project called, Aqua Lingua, which means “Water Tongue” in Latin. Aqua Lingua is inspired by the metaphorical depths, fluidity of feelings, and the linguistic overlaps of the human experience and water. For instance, there are bodies of water, and people have bodies… Water and people can both be deep or

shallow... You can pour your heart out to someone, or your heart can feel parched… When you speak a language well, you’re fluent in it, like water... What other examples of overlap of water and human beings can you think of?

As you set out on your own hero’s journey in the space, we’d like to offer you a few questions to take along your way. What grows along the banks of your river? What will you discover in the depths when you wade towards the headwaters of your essential, centered-self? What parts of you need mending or healing? What poetry pours from within you when you slow down and listen?

We invite you to breathe deeply in the installation, slow down, dive in, be playful, and engage your curiosity here. Take your time and take what you find and then go explore the rest of LINC and make something, learn something, try something, invent something, become something, etc.

May you grow and experience your fullest self here today. May the peaceful rising and falling of your own breath, like water seeking its level, fill you up and expand you. May joy flow to you, and through you. May you take all the pieces of your life that feel like broken pottery and create something new. May this installation be a doorway for you into the waiting world that needs curious, thinking, feeling, loving people, just like you.

Where Water Flows Uphill is a collaboration and confluence between the High Plains Library District, Weld Community Foundation, and artist Wes Bruce - along with a wonderfully long list of other talented creators including, filmmaker Ryan Shoemaker, audio/visual specialist Phil Van Drunen, composer JR Bishop, actor Lucy Coons, project management and architecture from the Exhibits Team, Kerri Atter & Jonathan Goldstein, Craft Engineering, Colorado Dance Collective, Raw Creative, Bonsai Design, Bikeshop Agency, BRS Architecture, Ben Porath and GH Phipps Construction, Mile High Stucco, Wember Inc, The Clay Center, Willy Bruce and Bob Young from the Calaveras Gem and Mineral Society, Evan Aardal, Chris McLean, Peter Romero, Armando Silva, Lucy Coons & the whole Coons Family, plus many, many other friends, fabricators, musicians, meal-makers and collaborators, both human and non-human.

Where Water Flows Uphill was funded and made possible through the generous support of Weld Community Foundation and High Plains Library District

This project is dedicated to my loves, Kaia & Zein

Thank you to my parents Darlene and Willy Bruce, and all the other parents in this project

Thank you to everyone who offered their minds and hands

Thank you to all the children who compelled us to make this ambitious artwork

Thank you to all the adults that were once children that believed in this weird and wavy adventure

Thank you to the River, thank you to the Land, thank you to the Sky, thank you to the Earth

Thank you, whoever you are, reading this, for joining us here today.

Be fluid and alive my friend, we’re glad you’re here :) Love love love to you