Water territories, Territorios del Agua en español, Nepi Wesit in Lenape language, engages with ephemerality through an intimate collaboration with water—a medium in constant motion and transformation. Born from daily walking meditations along the Rondout Creek, on the ancestral territories of the Lenape people, the work is both a meditation and a recognition of the land's original stewards. It captures fleeting reflections, shifting tides, transient gestures of light, and the subtle changes in water brought on by temperature and season—moments that vanish as quickly as they appear. Water becomes both vessel and mirror, revealing fragments of human consciousness—memories, emotions, and ancestral presence—that rise to the surface and dissolve. Through abstract imagery, the project embraces the impermanence of form and thought, inviting viewers to witness the beauty of what cannot be held. Each image is a meditation on change, a visual echo of how landscape, identity, and presence are continuously reshaped by time, rhythm, and encounter. The work has three stages, Origin, Spirit of Shatemuc and Green Distortions. (2023 -2025).
©2025 Maria Fernanda Hubeaut. All Rights Reserved.
Water Territories, Territorios Del Agua, Nepi wèsìt: Spirit of Shatemuc Triptych ( Rondout, Kingston 2024)
By Maria Fernanda Hubeaut
These three images form a visual triptych—an intimate unity that evokes the Lenape cosmovision and their reverence for the Hudson River, which they call Shatemuc, "the river that flows both ways." As part of the Water Territories series, this work embodies the river’s dual movement and living presence. Through fluid shapes, ephemeral reflections, and the play of light, the photographs open a perceptual and spiritual space where water becomes both mirror and memory.
This series offers a quiet homage to ancestral knowledge, honoring the Lenape understanding of water not only as a physical force but as a sentient being—a guide, a spirit, and a keeper of stories. Together, these three images create a contemplative narrative that invites viewers to witness the sacred in the ever-shifting nature of water.
In September 2025, the Rondout Creek and the Hudson River estuary underwent a rare transformation as the water’s surface turned luminous green—swirling, layered, and visually striking. What appeared serene and seductive carried deeper implications, signaling a moment of ecological imbalance shaped by warming waters and shifting conditions.
These images document a space where beauty and unease quietly coexist. The green surface both attracts and unsettles, inviting the viewer to reconsider aesthetic pleasure in relation to environmental responsibility. Rather than focusing on spectacle, the work opens a contemplative space to reflect on how altered river systems and planetary change inscribe themselves onto the waters that sustain us.
This stage of Water Territories, which I call Green Distortions, seeks to foster awareness and a deeper consciousness of our relationship to the environment and the responsibility involved in caring for it.
©2025 Maria Fernanda Hubeaut. All Rights Reserved.
