Healing Our Waters With Kelp – Indigenous Futurist Solutions for Mother Earth
Project Details:
The project I’m proposing is two years deep with a group I deeply admire, the Native Conservancy,
based in Eyak (Cordova, Alaska), a small fishing town. Our goals are to create beautiful images that
convey to the world how impactful their kelp initiative is. Eventually, they would like to scale up these
efforts of ocean remediation through kelp that will meet the scale of the climate crisis we face. Our
intended audience are any coastal communities that could benefit from launching a similar kelp initiative,
as well as any funders dedicated to moving resources to grassroots and Indigenous-led solutions for
climate justice, economic justice, and food sovereignty. Over the past three years, I’ve developed a
relationship with Native Conservancy, producing multimedia content to support their goals and vision.
This third year will be where we can really document the fruits of their labor. They will be harvesting the
kelp and they’ve already been able to provide many jobs to local Indigenous youth in their community,
as well as healthy greens to their community in a food desert, where healthy greens are inaccessible or
very costly.
About:
My name is Ayşe Gürsöz. I’m a photographer, producer, and cinematographer dedicated to storytelling
for social impact. My work for over a decade thematically focuses on environmental justice, revolutionary
futurisms, and human rights. The most essential tenet of my work is building authentic relationships that
move at the speed of trust, and working together to reach shared goals with meaningful collaboration. I
identify as an immigrant to Turtle Island (North America), and through my education and learnings
through the social movements that I’ve had the honor of working with around the world, I firmly believe
that a viable future for all peoples depends on a massive redistribution of wealth to grassroots
movements and land back to Indigenous peoples around the world. My dedication and passion for
social justice has taken me from the newsroom at Al Jazeera’s social channel, AJ+, to a yurt at Standing
Rock, where I was tasked by Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) to help with launching an
Indigenous-led social platform, now called Indigenous Rising Media. I’ve volunteered with IEN since
2012, and this is an example of one of the relationships I value deeply.
Contact:
Instagram: @yakamoz_ayse
Location: USA