Umbilical Lands And The Shape-Shifting Lives Of Rivers | Bo Choy and Sayana Namsaraeva

Artist Bo Choy speaks with Sayana Namsaraeva, an anthropologist from Buryatia, a republic in Eastern Siberia bordering Mongolia, whose work focuses on the Indigenous cosmologies of the people from her region. Together they delve into animated landscapes that surround Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest freshwater lake on the planet. Their conversation considers the intimate connection between these largely untouched landscapes and the rich fabric of belief systems, Indigenous cosmologies, oral traditions, and mythologies that emerge from them. Moving through their shared and diverging influences spanning pre-Buddhism shamanisms, Chinese and Mongolian Buddhisms, Feng Shui, and ancient eastern philosophies, Bo Choy and Sayana Namsaraeva discuss the spirit-life of these lands as they rub up against planetary climate urgencies, and contemplate how ancient wisdoms can have a vital role in the local and global relational ecologies we must form for the future. If you want to delve deeper into the permafrost, visit the full online programme Dissolving Earths https://dissolving.earth/ Credits: Soundscape and sound-editing by Either/Or Productions. Cover image: Bo Choy, ‘These Yearnings Of The Exiled Souls, To Which Time Shall We Send Them?,’ 2022, video still