Can art and humanities save the Great Salt Lake? On September 23-24, we explored this question with local artists, poets, journalists, community organizers, Tribal leaders, dancers, communications professionals, scholars, and of course, the many concerned community members who care about Great Salt Lake and a livable future. The Environmental Humanities Symposium on Great Salt Lake: Lessons of Art, Action, and Culture was a great success and we’re so grateful to all our speakers, event partners, and attendees.

Dr. Gregory E. Smoak recently gave the keynote talk on Utah’s water history at the Utah State Historical Society Conference. Greg is the director of the American West Center and the Utah Humanities State Scholar for Think Water Utah. His essay “Utah Waterways” examines Utah’s water history and contemporary challenges, including the crisis at Great Salt Lake. He has an extensive background in Native history, public history, and environmental history in the West.

Alisha Anderson graduated from the Environmental Humanities Program in 2015. During her time in the program, she made art about the Oquirrh Mountains. Since then, she has created with Great Salt Lake, been a Spiritual Ecology Fellow with the Kalliopeia Foundation, and lived at the edge of Bears Ears as an Artist in Residence with Utah Diné Bikéyah. She just defended (and passed!) her thesis to receive her MFA from the Art & Ecology Program at the University of New Mexico. Her project focused on the energy transition in Carbon Country, Utah. Overall, her work focuses on the confluence of identity and Earth, in an attempt to question (and reposition) how humans fit in this world.

Fiona's work at the University of Utah explores the intersections of Conservation Management and Restoration, Indigenous Methodologies, and Education while working at Antelope Island State Park. Her thesis will deconstruct the colonial narratives woven into State Park programming and collaborate with the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation to accurately depict the history of land acquisition, highlight their commitment to kinship beyond humans, and celebrate their long-standing relationship to the land. She believes centering the resilient voices and perspectives of Indigenous peoples are imperative to climate change adaptation.

Madeline McGill is a political scientist and narrative strategist living in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the unceded lands of the Eastern Shoshone and Goshute peoples. As an organizer and strategist, she has worked with organized labor, candidates for office, and advocacy organizations across the country on building campaigns that are committed to storytelling and transformational organizing strategy. Madeline moved to Utah in 2019 to help found the Rural Utah Project, bringing their fundraising and communications programs online. Since, she has worked as a freelance organizer and consultant, building, learning, and dreaming across the Mountain West.