When we started out Catskill Waters, our principal format of documentation was video. As we developed our project and conducted many interviews, audio recording surpassed the rank in usefulness and the idea of podcast emerged as the most promising platform for sharing.
More importantly, however, our conversations with residents revealed ongoing concerns and real needs to be addressed if we were to maintain or improve the well-being of the community and preserve the quality of our natural environment.
They also made clear that our region is full of creative talents with great ideas and desire to contribute. Numerous organizations are making efforts on various fronts.
We wondered if we could provide a space for meaningful dialogs, powerful networking, and practical information through podcast.
More than one year later, we have two programs up and running, with the third and main one coming soon.
Sundown is a chronicle of collaborative creation of artwork between two unlikely individuals in an unlikely place. Visual artist Chris Victor installs site-specific artwork outside of a gun-and-convenience store in a remote mountain in the Catskills. The podcast brings the real-time conversations between Chris and the store owner Paul Hnatiw.
Portraits and Stories is a collection of interviews with residents in the Rondout Neversink watersheds, the source of water for more than 8 million people in the New York metropolitan area 100 miles down south.
They are available on Anchor and Spotify.