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CAN YOU IMAGINE? is an art-meets-activism strategy that invites the power of collective imagination for water restoration.
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The vision is a part of a thoughtful sequence of community dreaming, prayerful acts & artful actions that invite us to imagine and live into an abundant reality.
"A dream we dream alone is only a dream. A dream we dream together is reality"
- Yoko Ono​​​​​​​
We acknowledge that the waters here flow through the ancestral and present-day homelands of the Nüümü and Newe (The Paiute Shoshone People).
Over a century ago, the waters were rerouted in Payahuunadü—“the place where the water always flows” to Los Angeles. Then, groundwater pumping began.
A valley of springs was silenced. The second-largest lake in California was drained. The people of the water were displaced, disregarded, and denied rights they should never have had to ask for. You can learn the full history here at the Owen's Valley Indian Water Comission's Page. This is a grief to feel together.
This harm was caused by greed, not need. Done in the name of cities and institutions, by people who claimed ownership of what was never anyone’s to own. An Indigenous worldview— one of relationship and stewardship— was replaced by one of control and possession.
Municipalities and agencies made decisions in the name of Los Angeles citizens who were too far away—and too uninformed—to understand the true cost of the water they drank.
Damage was done not only to the land and its people, but to the very essence of how we relate to place, responsibility, and each other.
And not all has been lost. There have always been protectors who have resisted erasure, stood up to injustice and carried memory.
We honor those within institutions who have made space for something better, who have chosen listening over defense, and who are helping transform systems from within.
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It is time to stop being comfortable. It is time to speak about what has happened, what has long needed to be acknowledged, and what morally must be repaired.
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We recognize that the return of land and water to Indigenous peoples is just and essential to our collective liberation.​
We must feel this grief. We must speak the truth. And most importantly, we must act.
We must restore what was broken. We must reimagine how we live, relate, and protect. We invite you to step fully into this reality.
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To tend to the waters within you. To repair the relationships around you. To become part of a future where land, water, and people are no longer in conflict—but in relationship.
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A reality where we stop consenting to these beliefs of scarcity and extraction.
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We can imagine the water's return.
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We believe spreading and sharing the water and power will bring dignity and power back to the people, the land and all beings.
We believe in coming together as relatives—
in prayer, vision and action. ​We believe in us.
This Water Protection Art Exhibit and Engagement is a design that intends to utilize our human capacity to envision and dream into the outcomes we wish to see, as an effective way of changemaking. The project guides the public community into invoking their own imagination and somatic anchoring of what water protection and reunion in Payahuunadü will feel and be like, understanding that if we create from a place of expectancy and wish-fulfillment, our aligned actions amplify this outcome.
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Specifically, the project aims at shifting the identity and scope of the valley’s gatekeeper of water and our cultural, community, and future experiences and relationships with water: the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The project invites us to shift the relational range of LADWP into its future incarnation: Los Angeles Department of Water Protection, regenerating values of what the future is calling into being: from water wars to water reunion and from water & power to water protection.​​​​
Essentially, the project asks that we shift the power to the relational authority of people of the land and the consciousness that we are able to cultivate within that enables “right relationship” with the sacred water and ways of these lands.
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And, first, we imagine that reality. This project invites just that.
The project acts, also, as a supportive gathering of like-hearted-minded individuals to potentially align in more community events of water artivism via collecting their imaginal responses and contact information. Gathering togeher, and rippling awarenes wherever we roam. Eventually, down to the city of Los Angeles itself.
"Imagination is a tool that helps with all processes—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. It allows you to tune into your energy, shift your body, and charge yourself with the power to transform.
Make it your new residence. Pack your bags with joy, because you’re going to the best place where everything is exactly how you want it. With pleasure— design a reality that serves you completely."
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Not Another Branch—A New Root
In a historic shift, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power—one of the largest municipal utilities in the nation—recognized that the challenges of this time required something beyond its existing structures. Not as an act of surrender, but as a commitment to collaboration. LADWP stepped aside to make space for something new.
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In response to generations of harm, and in deep recognition of decades of community leadership and advocacy, catalytic seed funding was used to support the emergence of an entirely independent, community-rooted agency:
The Department of Water Protection.
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​This new department is a fully autonomous, community-led organization with the authority to direct decisions around water rejuvenation—not mitigation—and water conservation—not extraction.
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Born from vision, not bureaucracy, the Department of Water Protection embodies a new way forward. Its mission is not control but care. Not efficiency but ethics. It listens instead of imposing, honors instead of managing, and relinquishes greed to take only what it needs.​​​
The Department of Water Protection is an offering in a time of urgency. It invites us to pause. To listen. To dream a collective vision. To imagine what could be—if we chose reunion over war, relationship over control.
This is an invitation to stop the fighting inside ourselves. To notice the battles we’ve inherited, the anger we carry, the wounds we protect instead of heal. To shift from blame to accountability, from conflict to care. We invite you into an internal water revolution—a sit-in inside your own water body. To liberate and bring dignity to the waters in your blood—the waters that hold memory, grief, and healing.
We have allowed this harm for far too long. As water bodies, as water beings, we have been complacent. And in our silence—however unintentional—we have been harmful. The people, the land, and the water have suffered from our inability to respond.
It is time to take collective accountability. To come together as a community and apologize— to the waters in each other. To the waters in the land. To the part of ourselves that knew better, and didn’t act because we’ve forgotten how to.
When we begin to purify our own waters, we make it safer for others to tend to theirs. The healing ripples outward. One clear body makes it easier for others to reflect. One act of care invites another. This is how the tide turns—not all at once, but drop by drop, person by person, community by community. Can you imagine that if we return to the waters within, then the waters around us will return as well? If we enact a reclamation act in ourselves…what will we reclaim outside of ourselves?
The Los Angeles Department of Water Protection was envisioned in collaboration with water protectors from Payahuunadü—people whose lives are deeply rooted in this land, whose families have stewarded it for generations, and who carry the stories, grief, and hope of the valley in their waterways.
This department is part of our collective call to care, not just critique. This is not about blame. It’s about accountability—for the harm done and the future we’re co-creating. It’s about refusing to see each other as adversaries. Because it doesn’t take a hero to protect the water. It takes a community. We can no longer afford to be divided. It’s time to understand there are no villains here, only visionaries.
If we choose collaboration over control, and healing over harm, we can become a model—not just for L.A. or the Eastern Sierra, but for everywhere water is calling to be healed, liberated, and protected.
This work is for the next seven generations. It’s not a water war. It’s a water reunion.
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Words from our Director of Water Empowerment Santeena Pugliese
​We honor and thank those who have made this moment possible. From tribal nations, water commissions, non-profits and artist collectives to community members, youth, elders and ranchers—so much work has gone into helping people reimagine and remember Payahuunadü. We invite you to join us in growing this movement rooted in care, courage, and connection.
As a Water Protector, you are stepping into a radical responsibility—not just to protect water as a relative, but to embody a new way of being in relationship with land, people, community, and spirit.
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This isn’t about us versus them. It’s about WE.
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Water Protection is not a job. It is a way of life—a daily practice of stewardship, healing, and humility. We believe that true power comes not from control, but from collaboration. When we tend to the waters within us, we’re better able to tend to the waters that nourish all life.
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In this movement, we embrace co-stewardship with all beings— we uplift a worldview shaped by deep connection to place, spirit, and each other. We listen before we act. We bring people into the work—not to speak for them, but to draw out and make space for their wisdom and gifts. We know that every person is searching for meaning. Our intention is to invite them back to meaningful work: work that heals, restores, and reconnects.​
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We can only give what we are overflowing with. ​So join us as Water Protectors—not just in name, but in presence. To feel your role. To activate your care. To ripple out healing wherever you flow.​