Project Mission

The Charles River Composition is an initiative to gather photographers from across Greater Boston to research, document, and engage with the Charles River Watershed for one year in order to:

1) Create a multifaceted photographic record of the Charles River Watershed and its constituents – water, earth, air; plants, animals, minerals, plankton; towns, neighborhoods, communities, families, individuals.

2) Incite reflection, understanding, and collaboration with our local environments and communities through sustained, long-term fieldwork and interaction.

3) Initiate and develop relationships with our local environments and neighbors.

4) Build and share an archive of the Watershed for present and future generations.

5) Create community among photographers within the Watershed

Project Outcomes

Each artist will produce a series of photographs that documents or responds to a specific site or constituency within the Watershed. All participants will also meet at least twice as a group to build community and share works-in-progress.

The 48 photographers who have agreed to participate range in age from 22–82 and produce works using scientific, journalistic, documentary, and/or experimental approaches. After one year, our individually produced series will be presented together to create a multifaceted, multi-authored, photographic record of our endangered Watershed. We intend for this collective work to serve as an archive of the Watershed for present and future generations.

Photography is taking place between March 20, 2025 – March 20, 2026 (spring equinox to spring equinox). We are seeking opportunities to exhibit and publish the results of our work in 2026 and beyond.

Contact us for more information

Lisa McCarty

Project Founder

Lisa McCarty is the founder and organizer of the Charles River Composition.

McCarty is a photographer, educator, curator, and a naturalist-in-training. Equal parts forager & researcher, her projects are informed by long-term fieldwork, reading, & archive digging. Many of McCarty’s projects begin as a response to unsung ecosystems or a lack of public records. The Charles River Composition was inspired by the lack of depictions of the Charles River Watershed. Of the ten books on the Charles River available at the Boston Public Library, there is only one book that is not related to tourism and that was also published in this century.

McCarty holds a MFA in Experimental & Documentary Arts from Duke University. She lives and works in Boston where she teaches at Northeastern University.