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Fighting for a Foothold in American Law, the Rights of Nature Movement Finds New Possibilities in a Change of Venue: the Arts
The celebrated artist Andrea Bowers grew up in Ohio on Lake Erie. Her exhibit at MoCa makes a case that the lake and its tributaries possess the legal rights to “Exist, Flourish and Evolve.”
By Katie Surma
CLEVELAND—The ailing Cuyahoga river, bloated with industrial pollution, erupted into flames reaching as high as a five story building on June 22, 1969. The river, one of several heavily polluted waterways that feed Lake Erie, had caught fire at least a dozen times over the course of a decade, the horror of which helped spark the nascent U.S. environmental movement, leading to the enactment of landmark legislation like the 1972 Clean Water Act.
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