Water Holds Memory

Water Holds Memory is an unsparing account of clean water accessibility witnessed through the documentary portrait of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park resident elder Effie Yazzie, who belongs to one of the last twelve families allowed to live in the park. Effie’s life, inextricably bound to the fate of water since her birth, carries the complex cultural, environmental and geopolitical history of water rights in the United States. Every two days, Effie spends 4-6 hours collecting water for her family and livestock. Throughout her life, Effie has been forced to adapt to the changing climate, depleted and contaminated reservoirs, and the consequences of political water wars that leave her community without water infrastructure. While many (and still not enough) documentaries cover stories of water crises through journalistic rhetoric and agricultural perspectives, none portray the crisis through the eyes of a woman recalling childhood memories as water collector and examining the complicated cultural relationships between water and women. Filmed on horseback following Effie through memory and Monument Valley’s most difficult places to access, Water Holds Memory is an intimate, visceral and unapologetic elegy of a day in the life of one woman’s search for water. The project aims to create space for Effie to tell her story with the goal of raising awareness about the water crisis in the Southwest and what needs to happen in order for families like Effie’s to maintain their way of life.

This project is in Collaboration with Tse Bii’ Project, a non-profit organization whose mission is to fundraise and install sustainable off-grid resources into homes of Monument Valley residents that address water and electrical inaccessibility. Nixon is Executive Director of Tse Bii’ and hopes that these work promote a deeper connection water, resource inequities, and the importance of the Land Back Movement.