Documentary Preview+ Conversation: Water Stewardship & Indigenous Knowledge
Presented as part of Hidden Currencies: Water Justice in the Age of AI.
What does it mean to truly care for water — not just manage it, but treat it as a living part of our shared world?
Join us for a 15- minute preview of the upcoming feature documentary Undamming Klamath (Swiftwater Films) — which follows the historic 2024 removal of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River — the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. The film captures what comes after: salmon returning, habitats healing, and communities reconnecting with a river restored through years of collaboration between tribal nations, government agencies, and conservation partners.
The screening will be followed by a conversation on water stewardship — how we relate to, protect, and restore freshwater systems at a time of growing climate pressure. Indigenous knowledge and practice will be a central part of that conversation, offering time-tested frameworks for understanding water through reciprocity and long-term responsibility. These perspectives complement and enrich broader efforts in conservation science, policy, and sustainable water management.
The Klamath restoration stands as a compelling example of what becomes possible when diverse knowledge systems and stakeholders work together — and what that spirit of collaboration might mean for water challenges around the world.
Featured Speakers
Panelists
Kara Briggs (Sauk-Suiattle/Yakama) was a career journalist for two decades telling the stories of Western United States from two leading regional newspapers before launching a popular column in ICT about cancer in tribal communities while she battled cancer and survived. She has worked with tribes from Arizona to Alaska in various professional roles and now serves as Vice President of Tribal Lands and Waters Stewardship at Ecotrust, a non-profit for which she works with tribes across the West Coast. Her recent collection of poetry Rivers in My Veins was published by Saint Julian Press.
Romain Maendly is a Senior Water Resources Engineer with the California Department of Water Resources, bringing a technical and policy perspective on how large-scale water systems are managed, restored, and planned for in a changing climate.
Felicia Marcus is the Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West Program after a career in the private, non-profit, and governmental sectors working on a range of environmental and other issues. Felicia has been Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board, Administrator of the U.S. EPA Region IX, head of the City of LA’s Public Works Department, and other NGO and private sector roles. She is currently working on climate adaptation, water, and energy issues as a researcher, Board Member, and as a consultant.
Annelia Norris (pue-leek-la) is a climate activist and artist whose work centers on water, land, and Indigenous ecological relationships. Featured in the documentary Guardians of the River, her site-specific installation Rubble with a Cause (2024), composed of installation debris from Copco #2, Iron Gate dams, and protest artwork, is on view in the exhibition Hidden Currencies: Water Justice in the Age of AI.
Moderator
Mary Miller is a science communicator, digital media producer and educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. In her writing, Mary concentrates on the confluence of water, energy and the environment in the West and completed a research and reporting fellowship about the deconstruction of four dams on the Klamath River and restoration of salmon habitat in Northern California and Oregon. Her current reporting project involves the removal of diversion and hydroelectric dams on the Eel and Russian Rivers and restoration of the two watersheds. Mary's work has taken her to the ice fields of Antarctica and Greenland, in a NOAA hurricane-hunter studying atmospheric rivers, and aboard oceanographic research vessels remotely exploring deep sea volcanoes.
About the Film
Undamming Klamath (Swiftwater Films) documents the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, showing how tribal nations, scientists, and conservation partners are renewing fish habitats, restoring ecosystems, and building a new relationship with one of the West's most storied rivers.
About the Hidden Currencies Series
Presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco, Hidden Currencies explores water as a living medium whose circulation sustains both life and technological innovation. The series highlights connections between Switzerland’s longstanding commitments to water stewardship, diplomacy, and innovation, and the Bay Area’s role as a global hub for research and technology.
The central exhibition features works by six artists whose practices span photography, sculpture, installation, performance, video, and data art: Mark Baugh-Sasaki, Kristiana Chan 莊礼恩, Céline Ducret, Ana Teresa Fernández, Greg Niemeyer, and Annelia Norris (pue leek la').
An adjoining experiential hub features interventions by City Studio (Amy Berk + Chris Treggiari), Ani Moskovyan, Greg Niemeyer, Samuel Wildmann, Tania Claudia Castillo, Candice Mays, and Juana Perfecta. Together, these works invite visitors to reckon with water's hidden presence in everyday life — drawing audiences into direct encounters with the systems, costs, and migrations that water quietly connects.
Curated by Amy Kisch, Founder of AKArt Advisory and Art+Action, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive experience that extends beyond the gallery through a series of interdisciplinary activations bringing together Swiss and U.S. artists, filmmakers, Indigenous knowledge holders, policymakers, scientists, and climate activists to explore water, climate justice, and imagined futures.
This event is presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco in collaboration with AKArt Advisory, EAWAG, Stanford Doerr School Sustainability Accelerator, and Geneva Water Hub, and supported by Presence Switzerland and EAWAG.
For more information or to explore other Swiss events, visit SwissImpact.