Most horror movies are steeped in death. After all, the scariest thing most of us can imagine is the idea of our own demise. In slashers like Halloween and Scream, killers hack their way through unsuspecting victims. The Saw and Terrifier franchises are famous for their life-ending gore.

Tell me if you've heard this before: families can be complicated. It's such a clichéd thing to say, but there's a world of complexity to unpack with it. Some of the best TV shows have explored the intricacies of families, but none have done it in a way quite like the Netflix animated series Long Story Short. Told in a non-linear fashion, the comedy-drama show is centered on three adult siblings – Avi (Ben Feldman), Shira (Abbi Jacobson), and Yoshi (Max Greenfield) – as they experience life while looking back on their childhood and their parents, played by Lisa Edelstein and Paul Reiser.

For many, myself included, Steven Spielberg is the filmmaker who made us fall in love with cinema. Few directors have effortlessly moved between genres. He reinvented the summer blockbuster with Jawsand Raiders of the Lost Ark, made harrowing historical dramas such as Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, andchanged the way we look at extraterrestrials with E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I’ve made no secret of my attachment to Spielberg; without him, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be writing this review. There’s also a chance this very website wouldn’t exist.

When we think of terms like “flowing” or “fluid,” we could be referring to the nature of water, but we can also just as easily apply these concepts to our understanding of art and craft. Fabrics “pool” and different mediums converge. The nature of creativity is often referred to in terms of an “ebb and flow.” Ecologically speaking, bodies of water are metaphorically woven into the fabric of our planet. Rivers and lakes sustain an abundance of life, shape cultures, and course through history. Amid the ongoing climate crisis, how do artists express concerns about water and the environment?

Water | Craft, a group exhibition at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, dives into this question. The museum itself is situated on the banks of the Mississippi River and often directly engages with its expansive biological and cultural reach. Works by seven artists, whose practices incorporate weaving, pottery, basketry, glass, and textile arts, directly interface with contemporary issues of water access and cultural preservation amid climate change.

Colossal readers may be familiar with the mixed-media pieces of Tali Weinberg and Nicole McLaughlin, both of whom combine quantities of colorful thread with other materials in meditations on interconnectivity and multi-disciplinarity. Weinberg translates ecological data into tendril-like installations and abstract weavings, such as a series of three pieces from her Climate Datascapes series that visualize information about silt in the Upper Mississippi River. McLaughlin’s dramatically fringed ceramic platters reference Pre-Columbian cultures and the continuum of human history and time.

Water | Craft also includes works by Rowland Ricketts, Sarah Sense, Therman Statom, Kelly Church, and Tanya Aguiñiga. The latter is known for her intricately knotted wall works containing terracotta forms, which cascade gently to the floor. And Ricketts’ large-scale installation, “Bow,” comprises strands of indigo-dyed linen that suspend within a large gallery space, creating the effect of a current or perhaps the silhouette of a boat.

“Just as water flows through bodies, landscapes, and cultural histories, craft knowledge is passed between generations, carrying technical skills alongside cultural values,” the museum says. “The artists in Water | Craft employ traditional methods not as nostalgic gestures, but as living practices that continue to evolve in response to environmental change.”

Water | Craft continues through December 27 in Winona.

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