The Helio Butler Institute for intraterrestrial survival is an art and research collective interested in investigating experiential interactions between people and places. HBI was created in 2015 by two people inspired by the storytelling of Octavia Butler and the art of Hélio Oiticica. Since then, researchers-at-large have studied and explored locations considered both place and non-place, and have interacted with beings considered both human and non-human. In charting and compiling such interactions, HBI constellates a repository of literature, public tours, discussions, archives and queries into interpolated space.
WalkingLab researchers are Maya Land, Alexis Selleck and Nassem Navab.
The Tijuana Estuary is an international wetland where waters from Tijuana, Imperial Beach and the Pacific Ocean mix.
Much work has been done to address issues of habitat conservation, maintenance, waste-water management and restoration of this coastal habitat. Seeking a divergent experience of this site, HBI has composed three walks to be experienced either on site, virtually or not at all.
Embrace the coastal chic lifestyle at Southern California’s trendiest destination: the San Diego River. Accented by living willow walls, gorgeous palm trees and iconic river-crossings, this river is a must visit. You will find yourself positively in the middle of it all.
Visit and find discarded shopping bags from over 200 stores, including those from international fashion houses like Hermes, Prada and Salvatore Ferragamo, and leading department stores like Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. Imagine all this while soaking up the best of San Diego’s sunshine and riparian perfumes in this open-air environment. Try something new and snack on leftovers from acclaimed True Food Kitchen, Stacked and Blue Smoke Sushi Lounge or enjoy the lingering aromas of the nearby favorites like The Cheesecake Factory, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and California Pizza Kitchen.
FEATURED STORES
Apple, Runoff, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Louis Vuitton, Microplastics, Nike Store, Tiffany & Co., Mysterious Footprints, Tory Burch, Zara, Mallard Point
DIRECTIONS & TRANSPORTATION
BY BUS
San Diego MTS offers direct bus service with a stop at the Fashion Valley Transit Center near JCPenney. Follow the sound of rushing water South from the Mall entrance and find yourself at the San Diego River.
BY CAR
The San Diego River is located off Highway 163 at the Friars Road exit. Park in one of the many Parking Structures. The San Diego River often floods the Parking Structures, thus allowing for easy river access.
BY TROLLEY
San Diego MTS offers direct trolley service via the Green Line. Enjoy the view of the river from your window before your stop at the Fashion Valley Transit Center near JCPenney.
BY TAXI
Taxi service is available at the Fashion Valley Transit Center near the Bending Willow Tree.
BY LIMOUSINE
Drop off at valet, park in the outer parking lot with a signature Antarctica-shaped water mark.
BY SHUTTLE
Drop off at JCPenney pull in, park in the outer parking lot mentioned above (with the Antarctica-shaped water mark, not to be confused with the parking lot with the Iceland-shaped water mark).
BY TOUR BUS
Drop off at valet, park in the outer parking lot with a signature Iceland-shaped water mark.
BY FOOT
Our apologies, but due to current conditions, it is inadvisable to access the river by foot. Please consider one of the options listed above.
A proposition to walk the length of what is currently known as the LA River.
_____________________________________________
To whom it may concern,
TheHelio Butler Institute is requesting the permission of the LA River to walk from its mouth in Long Beach to Canoga Park where tributaries converge. We ask that the governing body presiding over access to this public waterway allow for a three person team of qualified researchers to traverse and document what has become the LA River.
We understand there is no loitering, sleeping or settling along the banks. We will follow the river in constant movement.
We will walk respectfully, careful not to disturb any fragile urban ecologies, constellations of refuse or runoff pools. We will gather only images, sounds and memories that future LA residents can experience as a testament to what once was the river that ran along the 710, 5 and 101 freeways.
The goal is to investigate this neglected backbone of Los Angeles; to rekindle an intimacy with the water that runs through the city, water forgotten with each sip from the Colorado. We feel that this relationship is vital to the survival of the river, a component overlooked in current restoration efforts. We see walking as resistance to the vanishing of this path, a river that is defined by its human engagement.
We respectfully ask permission to walk this waterway as researchers, artists and citizens.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns.
Thank you and look forward to hearing from you soon.
With no foreseeable response, we hope the person sitting at their computer reading this email at least took a moment to ponder this feat. That for a moment, they thought that this proposal, this intimacy, this restoration was possible.
This month, three primary researchers-at-large from the Helio Butler Institute for Intraterrestrial Survival (HBI) will embark on a journey of exploration through the waterways of Southern California. Maya Land, Alexis Selleck and Nassem Navab hope to develop an experiential mapping of this region by investigating the physical relationship between bodies and waterways.
Rivers are paths where water walks, paths that have been shaped by both human and geological forces. These waterways are an essential lifeline for human centers, and in the desert of southern California, their presence is even more crucial. The rivers running through Southern California’s desert cities are often either selectively preserved corridors deemed “natural” or suffocated cement canals set into the cityscape. They are sites of mixing, swirling eddies where invasive vines, native trout, human and animal homes, waste and cultural identities collide.
Local participants and HBI researchers will walk various rivers in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo, California. Together, this is an act to reclaim the public space and history of rivers. Individually, the intimacy of walking in water encourages a meditative interaction with the river and its synanthropic organisms. Walking in the river becomes dance, a radical way of redefining the relationship between body and place.
