WHAT THE RIVER CARRIES
ROME, 2023
To navigate the river you must first learn to read it. You do this by looking at the surface because you cannot see what lies beneath. The way the water moves offers a first clue. The shape of certain waves suggests safe passage between rocks; a white line warns you of a drop. You look for holes, the darkest places where the water circles in on itself and pulls you under. And eddy lines: cross them and you will find yourself in still waters once again, in a place where you can safely rest before continuing the journey downstream.
Sometimes all you see in the river is your own reflection.
Without the Tiber River there would be no Rome. No Republic, no Empire, no Colosseum. Yet most people today treat the once-sacred river as an afterthought. The Tiber lies almost hidden beneath the built city, straitjacketed and stonewalled into 19th century embankments. WHAT THE RIVER CARRIES is a meditation on the nature of time and the accretion of its many layers. It examines the relics of a future that will also soon be past and asks us to consider what it means to live with Rome’s imperial legacy—what it means to live downstream from Rome.
What the river carries is what we carry, too.