Fall 2021 Showcase Anderson

ANNEMARIE ANDERSON

THIS GARDEN: Oysters and Place in Spring Creek, Florida

The small fishing village of Spring Creek, Florida dead ends into the Gulf of Mexico. Aquaculturists in Spring Creek are rebuilding the small fishing community in decline by planting and tending oysters. As a sixth-generation Floridian, I returned to the wild, clarifying water that flows through so much of my own life experience. Tramping through salt marsh and palmetto, I began to document the environmental, economic, and social changes in my native state.

Oysters are a keystone species for both environment and culture. For the oyster farmers, crabbers, and fishermen in Spring Creek, the Gulf is a garden. Oyster seeds are planted, tended and harvested. Marine life teams among their shells.  People, animals, and the environment act upon each other. Knowledge and meaning is imbued into the contours of the land and the tidal currents. In this garden, people cultivate life, and black drum fish eat the cull. Gregarious pelicans perch atop cages of oysters and listen. The Gulf gives and takes with the pull of the tide.

Annemarie Anderson is pursuing an MFA in documentary expression. Her thesis fieldwork documents oyster farming along Florida’s Forgotten Coast. She is also the Southern Foodways Alliance’s oral historian. She received a master’s degree in oral history from the University of Florida in 2017, as the first graduate of that program. She also earned her bachelor’s degrees in English and history from UF.