Elana Rosa Engelman-Lado

Elana Rosa Engelman-Lado is a New York-based educator, researcher, student and thing-maker. She holds an M.A. in Performance Studies at NYU Tisch and a B.A. from Columbia University in Comparative Ethnic Studies. Elana has taught at organizations including the New York Botanical Garden and More Art. Her interests include collage, water, diasporic practice, socialization of control, environmental justice, historiography of landscapes and soundscapes and the intersections of science and the arts. Elana’s projects combine archival research with creative practice utilizing collage, audio-visual installation, book arts, academic and creative writing. Through her experience in Performance Studies, she is learning to integrate elements of performance and social practice in her work.

Title of Project

Water Bodies ~ The Los Angeles River and the Edges of Things

Description of Project

We are entangled with water bodies; we are water bodies. Water cycles are at once material and temporal. Water is boundless, edgeless, encircling and circulating through this world. Can we understand our edges as undefined, ourselves as collage, incongruous, interconnected? What can the Los Angeles river teach us about borders and boundaries? Must we delineate the river in space and time? Working with the L.A. River, its hydrology and the flood control measures imposed upon it this project questions boundaries, the edges of things and compulsions of control. This ongoing project attempts to accompany the river with writing, video, audio recording, photography and collage, collected in unbound pamphlet and short film.

Project Inspiration

A little stream starts to flow down a mountainside from a new spring. It makes a path across the land as the water moves. Gradually the path is washed out deeper and deeper, following the course of the water’s movement. If the stream keeps on flowing for a long time it will make a gully. Over the years it may even create a canyon by the rhythmical flowing of the water.

- Langston Hughes, The Book of Rhythms

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

- Toni Morrison, The Site of Memory

Areas of Academic Interest

collage, water, diasporic practice, control, environmental justice, landscapes, soundscapes, geography, borders and boundaries