Jody Redhage Ferber playing her cello in response to the environment below a cliff

An Aural Nest Tuned to Nature’s Musings:
Jody Redhage Ferber on her process and upcoming concert on May 17th at Montage Music Society in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein

Jody Redhage Ferber has developed an expertise in tune with the natural world. Her compositional and performative concepts as a cellist draw directly from her on-site experiences and interactions in nature. A process parallelled by NILS-UDO, a German Environmental Artist, Jody and her quartet will respond to his piece Red Rock Nest from 1998 in an evening of music on May 17th with the Montage Music Society, at Quail Run Clubhouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico at 4pm.

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Audience at an Ecotones concert with Jody Redhage Ferber and orchestra, photographer Andrea Swenson

On May 17th you will be playing cello alongside two singers and a pianist. What considerations have you taken while preparing this concert and what are you hoping to create in the evening experience?  

On Sunday, May 17, 2025 we’ll perform a full program for two sopranos (Ilana Davidson and Krista River), cello (myself, Jody Redhage Ferber), and piano (Montage Music Society director and founder Debra Ayers). These three musicians with whom I am privileged to collaborate are absolutely world-class and I am honored to have musicians such as these premiere a new work of mine.

This concert will be my first time in Santa Fe. So although this Montage concert wasn’t a chance for me to musically respond to the flora and fauna of Santa Fe, I did chose this particular work of Nils-Udo’s because of a Santa Fe connection: ecoartspace founder & director and current Santa Fe resident Patricia Watts was responsible for commissioning Nils-Udo’s Red Rock Nest in 1998 when she lived in Los Angeles.  

I’ve responded to photographic documentation of Nils-Udo’s piece Red Rock Nest, made in a cave in Topanga Canyon, California (and which ended up existing for 10 days before being dismantled by local residents).  Additionally, as the piece involves vocalists, I’ve chosen a poem by 15th century Indian poet Kabir as lyrics, which intriguingly converge with Nils-Udo’s piece. The program features a variety of nature-themed works for 2 sopranos, cello and piano from a vast span of composers from the baroque, classical, impressionistic, and modern eras. Montage Music director Debra Ayers, sopranos Ilana Davidson and Krista River and I all worked together to program the repertoire.  Along with the premiere of the commission Build a Nest for the Mystery, we'll also perform two of my existing compositions: snow peace calms us, written while I was caught (indoors!) during a blizzard in Vermont, with a sublime poem by Wyoming poet Ella Cvancara as the lyrics; and The Silent Articulation of a Face, in which I have set a Rumi poem (translated by Coleman Barks) as the lyrics--with Rumi encouraging those willing to “dive deeper under, a thousand times deeper” to "hear the green dome's passionated murmur."  

Ecotones concert, photographer Andrea Swenson

You are drawing from such a range of experiences and considerations! As part of Montage Music society with a unique vision for music in response to art: what has informed your process while responding through music to Montage’s environment and art concept?

I characterize my current compositional process as ‘whimsical sonic representation’ of the specific traits, characteristics, design features or the materiality of a chosen nonhuman being or species to which I am creatively responding. With Nils-Udo’s Red Rock Nest, he has crafted a nest out of Arundo donax reeds, and instead of his ubiquitous eggs, he uses citrus fruits that grow in the Topanga canyon area as ‘ovum.’  Nils-Udo’s repeating circular pattern of overlapping donax cuttings and the spherical dimensionality of the citrus led me to choose a time signature of 3/4, to give the piece a rolling, circular feel of three-beat patterning. The entire composition is based on an ostinato (recurring pattern of notes) that swings backs and forth between two tonal centers—sonically reflecting the artists' physical motions of laying the donax twigs overlapping in a circular, unfurling pattern that expands outward like a a fractal expansion, with each twig slightly overlapping the next. I imagine that he began in the center of the nest and expanded by spiraling outward. Similarly in the music, I begin with a simple, pared-down representation of the toggling between these key centers—and as the piece unfurls, I reach to different harmonic destinations that seem blissful or joyful—harmonically reaching a celestial realm where Kabir’s “bird spends the night.”

NILS-UDO, Red Rock Nest, Old Topanga Canyon, California, 1998

As he builds his work, I imagine Nils-Udo embodying the mystery bird of which Kabir speaks— dipping into the realm of ‘no color, no form, no shape, no boundaries—in the shadow thrown by love” as an animating spirit leading him toward his decisions in every moment as his work unfurls. In building this work, he creates a nest for Kabir’s mystery bird—an encouragement for us all to build our own nests.

It was fascinating and somehow very intimate to continually imagine Nils-Udo bending, choosing, collecting, sorting, hiking, balancing, stopping, cutting, placing, balancing, discarding, forming, breathing, thinking, feeling, weighing, & considering as he crafted his piece. All of the artist’s physical movements seemed to take on a rhythm for me—as if my musical imagination was creating a soundtrack for his nature-art-build. And in fact, this responsive process has allowed me to connect the ephemerality of Nils-Udo’s work, Kabir’s focus on the ephemerality of the “mystery” as “no form, no color, no shape, and no boundary,” and the fact that I work in a most ephemeral of artistic mediums: music.

In a number of ways, these topics are an extension of your ongoing project “EcoTones” where  you are also exploring the ‘interrelatedness amongst humans, flora, and fauna.” What are some differences and similarities in approach between the EcoTone and the Montage concerts?  

My ongoing public performance project EcoTones Concerts sites live musicians on trailside stages with a mobile audience in public nature spaces, performing creative acoustic music directly inspired by the flora and fauna surrounding each trailside stage. I partner with entities that manage the land (conservation groups, park nonprofits or other ecology organizations) and I engage in multiple site visits to make field recordings of the nonhuman inhabitants. Each event is specifically designed to celebrate and highlight the nonhuman residents’ unique characteristics, design features, and notable abilities through the music.  

By inviting human performers and audience to a nature space, we are literally creating an ecotone between the human biome and the natural biome of local flora and fauna— encouraging direct engagement with nonhuman beings, and a questioning of the mainstream human perspective of dominance over all other beings. This music is for growing stewardship, humility, and compassion from the humans to the nonhuman members of a local ecosystem. These performances get locals asking questions, shining attention on the chosen nature site, digging deeper into the "personalities" of the local flora and fauna… there are so many layers of intrigue!

Jody, this sounds like a fabulous and one of a kind evening of music you are preparing! I wish I could join and cannot wait to hear all about it from our members who attend!

"Light Bending the World", Montage Music Society Salon Premiere
(Recording of a previous Montage Music Society salon concert in response to the Art of April Gornik, November, 2023)

May 2025 e-Newsletter for subscribers is here

 

Tracy, your work “celebrates the wonder of the natural world and raises awareness about sustainability, plastic reduction” and the protection of nature. How did this become your focus and how has your approach evolved over time?

I have always cared about the environment, but I became invested in upcycled plastic when I was trying to create texture and a distorted grid pattens in my encaustic paintings. The more I worked with plastic, I came to understand how it was repelled by the natural materials I was working with. I also became acutely aware of how much single use plastic was in the environment. As I began to change my lifestyle and reduce my consumption of single use plastic, I realized I could use my artistic platform to spread the message about the dangers of plastic. In addition to my art practice, I have become involved with legislative efforts to reduce plastic packaging in NY State.

The more I read about plastics the more I became concerned about microplastics in the body. When I started the Ubiquitous project in 2022 scientists had found microplastics in every natural environment and in the human body, but they were unclear if microplastics were causing health issues. As of today, microplastics have been found in the brain, heart arteries, lungs, blood, kidneys, livers, intestines, testicles, reproductive organs, joints, bone marrow, breast milk, and placentas of humans. In addition, it is now clear that microplastics are harmful to our health.

Uff… That’s not good for our health! “Ubiquitous” explores this microplastics topic through a multi-media installation with creamy white painted sculptures and cool-toned abstract paintings. How did you decide on materials and techniques? What does your process involve?

After working with upcycled plastics for many years, in 2022, I took the ecoartpace class, Sustainability and the Art Studio, and closely examined my materials, safety practices, supplies, tools and studio practice to determine if I could make my work process more environmentally friendly. My primary material is encaustic paint, which is created from beeswax, damar resin and pigment, which is more environmentally friendly than many art materials. I spoke to R&F Paints, the primary manufacturer of my encaustic paint, and learned that their company is committed to sourcing and producing environmentally friendly practices from their small factory in Kingston, NY. I have discontinued use of all cadmium color encaustic paint, as cadmium can be toxic and only use brushes made of natural materials. I shop locally whenever possible and use upcyled materials in much of my work. In addition, I have improved the ventilation system in my studio and wear a mask when I mix my own paints. In the last few years, I have begun to focus on creating works on paper which use less material, and create a smaller carbon footprint, than creating paintings on panels.

The recent paintings were all painted in colors which embrace the beauty of nature … the blues of the sea and sky, the greens of the earth and trees, and the yellow of the sun. Like the sculptures, the paintings were textured with upcycled plastic. I use upcycled material in my work, because it allows me to spark conversations about sustainability, plastic reduction, and the urgent need to protect the world we inhabit.

I experimented with many color variations for the sculptures in my Ubiquitous installation. My goal for the installation was to bring viewers in with the beauty of the sculptures and then, when they were immersed in the installation, they would come to learn that the sculptures represented microplastics in the body and focus on the shapes and texture of the pieces without getting lost in the color. I landed on the simplicity of the creamy white.

I really appreciate how many factors you consider when creating this work. Beyond your mission and interest, you seem to attend to the viewer and how the pieces live in curated space. Does this awareness come from your varied career background? Has becoming an artist after having other careers informed your approach?

I made a lot of art as a teenager, but I grew up in a family where you went to college to prepare for a career. Studying studio art in college was never something I ever imagined; however, I did take a few art history classes while getting a degree in mass communications and marketing. I worked in art related careers for over 20 years, not only at MoMA and the Guggenheim, but I also worked in advertising, both in the US and overseas. Then, through the years that I was a stay-at-home mom, I took courses at the International Center for Photography and at the New York School for Interior Design. In retrospect, I realize I had been circling the idea of my own art practice for many years without realizing it.

When I was in my 50’s and dealing with some difficult family issues, I was finally brave enough to begin taking classes at the Art Students League of New York and workshops with experienced artists working in encaustic. I had to make myself vulnerable, be willing to challenge myself, and pick myself up when I failed. The time I spent working in museums exposed me to the work of many contemporary artists, gave me a stronger appreciation for curation and showed me how art can be used as an immersive experience.

My non-traditional artistic training has taught me to look deeply at art, to embrace balance, not symmetry, to appreciate scale and size, and to become obsessed with texture. I sometimes wonder how a traditional art school background would have affected my practice. Perhaps I would draw better or would have been further along in my career as an artist. But my winding background has made me who I am today, and I wouldn’t change it. When I studied interior design I took classes in color theory, art history, textiles, and drafting. I use these skills in my work today and they give me better understanding about how work looks in a space. Studying photography taught me about composition and proportion, which are integral to my current work. And I use my marketing and organizational skills from my advertising days in the administrative part of my work.

As for the future of my practice, I am currently developing a series of encaustic monotypes based on the concept of patina. I have learned that patina is not corrosion, but a protective layer that can prevent further deterioration. I am developing the idea that like patina, art can protect us from the negativity in the world around us. I don’t see art as a place to hide, but as a place to pause and find respite, before we head back to fight another day.

Thank you, Tracy! You’ve offered a lot to consider in both message and space.

Featured images (top to bottom): ©Tracy Penn, Ubiquitous, 2024, mixed media and upcycled plastic, installation view, Sandwich, New Hampshire, USA; These Are Days, 2022, encaustic, oil, and upcyled material on panel, 36 x 72 x 1.75, commissioned work; Ubiquitous, 2024, mixed media and upcycled plastic, installation view, Sandwich, New Hampshire USA; Ubiquitous, 2024; portrait of the artist (below).

Suzette Martin, “The Sacred Theory: Deluge and Conflagration,” installation view at Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, 2023

Our Environmental Future, Rooted in the Past:
The Renaissance of the Earth Artist in Residence at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at UMass Amherst, 2025-2026

Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein


The Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at UMass Amherst invites 2 to 3 artists each year to engage with their Renaissance rare book collection and activate their grounds through related art projects. Focusing on both teaching and activating, the “Renaissance of the Earth” residency allows for a distinct projects that make the past alive again while innovating with inter-disciplinary knowledge and collaboration. Liz Fox, Program Coordinator, and Marjorie Rubright, Director, are focusing this year’s residency focuses on Earth and Air. Applications are due by July 31st.

For more information on the Kinney Center at UMass Amherst: The Renaissance of the Earth : Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies : UMass Amherst

For more information the Artist in Residency at the Kinney Center: Residencies — Renaissance of the Earth

“Small Bursts of Knowledge Series”, Artist Brandon Graving and Liz Fox, PhD. Arts & Academic Programs Coordinator | Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at UMass, Amherst, Ma. excitedly review Brandon's newest sculptures for her solo exhibition

Liz and Marjorie, This Kinney Center residency is especially unique. How does the Kinney Center’s programming lend to collaborative work, especially with environmental artists?

The Kinney Center is home to the Renaissance of the Earth, a project that revolutionizes what it means to engage the early modern past with questions about our environmental future. Renaissance of the Earth puts students, artists, and scholars at the center of an interdisciplinary research model with the goal of discovering diverse avenues for creating sustainable and equitable life.

Environmental artists play a central part in the Renaissance of the Earth project. During their residency, artists research and explore our rare book collection, often work hands-on in our historical gardens, and bring us new ways of thinking about the connections between the Renaissance and our world today. Artists offer masterclasses, performances, exhibits, and other programs that engage students, researchers, and the public. Our artist-centric events foster space for creative inquiry and encourage collaborative and cross-disciplinary relationships to flourish.


Kitchen Garden at the Renaissance of the Earth at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, UMass Amherst

Having visited last summer, I was struck with how beautiful the Kinney Center grounds are in such a gorgeous and varied natural landscape. And with that kitchen garden area. What a dream. What are some particularly inspirational aspects of your location in Western Massachusetts?

We sit on 28 acres of a biodiverse landscape. Artists, scholars, and students find all manner of  inspiration here. Students studying sustainability and permaculture experiment using our land as a laboratory and get hands-on experience with methods in soil sciences, for instance. The UMass beekeeping club has built their hive in our meadow. Professors bring their classes for practica in plant identification and landscape design and students have set up wildlife cameras to document animal habitats. A lot happens here!

In addition to our outdoor eco-systems, we have a reading room, gallery, and library that feature rotating exhibits of rare books and art. The library’s special collections include over one thousand rare books and manuscripts from 1375 - 1750. These books invite visitors to explore the inherently interdisciplinary nature of the Renaissance, from its literature, music, and art, to the sciences of anatomy, botany, geology, and cartography. Our visitors love learning that the Renaissance was “pre-disciplinary”: a radically different way of thinking about the world than siloed “departments” would have us believe. Then, it was as common to be both an artist and a scientist, a botanist and a poet. To choose would have been entirely counterintuitive.

Andrea Calouri, Mapping Terroir: Memory & Myth, Exhibition Published on Jun 15, 2022 https://issuu.com/umasshfa/docs/mapping-terroir-catalog

An interdisciplinary center in keeping with in renaissance both in study and practice! What do rare books and historical knowledge teach about how to reshape and build resilience for our environmental future?

Scholars of the premodern world have been at the vanguard of environmental history and eco-criticism in the humanities, exploring how seemingly- presentist conversations regarding environmental disaster, sustainability, and resilience traffic in ideas, metaphors, and modes of thinking whose roots extend into the Renaissance. The mission of Renaissance of the Earth is to go further: organizing collaborative research across interdisciplinary scholarly communities and the public to consider how early modern habits of thought and practice might aid in imagining alternative forms of habitation and cultivation of the earth. As a multidisciplinary project, the Renaissance of the Earth aims to reimagine our approaches to the past and its relation to the present by exploring the legacies of early modern environmental injustice.

Susan Montgomery, “Poisonous Revenge”, Mixed Media Print, Kinney Center Renaissance of the Earth 2023-2024

This is such a necessary and urgent legacy and there is so much to be learned from the past. What have been some impactful approaches to environmental justice through your center?

Both humanists and earth scientists contend that the rise of globalization in the Renaissance marks the dawn of a geological epoch: “the Anthropocene.”  This epoch was inaugurated with both the extraction and transportation of natural resources and the forced migrations of human beings around the globe. It was the moment of the trans-atlantic middle passage as well as the extraction and redistribution of natural resources around the globe. The

Renaissance of the Earth project is committed to exploring those connections that present us with the most challenging legacies: extractive colonialism, racism, forced human migration, and the asymmetries of environmental devastation around the globe.

For instance, we sometimes start with the micro at a very local level. Our students in a Permaculture Design and Practice course here at UMass recently grappled with a single question: What does land acknowledgement look like here? “Here” being a Renaissance Center at a land-grant institution in Massachusetts and “here” being a landscape whose indigenous histories are often effaced by the supplanting of state institutions, like our own. Drawing from our library, their coursework, and involving intense independent research, student responses to this question varied from implementing alternative land management practices to creating signage and pathways that invite visitors to engage with both indigenous knowledge systems and the specific local histories of settler colonialism.

Madge Evers with “Candle, Show Me the Way” mycelium Print during Kinney Center Residency 2022, Photo Credits Jill Kaufman

I find it so refreshing that the Kinney Center is able to practice what it preaches. Your institute really brings the learning to life. How do practitioners and students to engage at the Kinney Center differently than academic research study alone?

We imagine our rare book library first and foremost as a teaching library, meaning that we make our materials accessible and place books in the hands of students and artists alike. We also encourage students, artists, and the public to move back and forth from our library to our outdoor landscape to discover not only what they might learn, but what they might do.
In the Renaissance knowledge and modalities of learning were not siloed into different academic disciplines. There were no “majors” and “departments”. People studied history, science, religion, agriculture, philosophy, and classical literature because they understood them to be within related knowledge systems. So, at the Center, we prize both book knowledge and hands-on learning. For instance, understanding soil composition was essential to increasing the yield of crops in practice, so both knowledge and skill arise out of observation and engagement. Our students take our books out into our orchard, for instance, to discover how to improve the life of our apple trees by adding to the biodiversity of plants that grow beneath each tree (called, companion planting), a practice they knew well in the Renaissance.  

Since your rare book library focuses on teaching, do invited artists contribute to activating your goals and visions? How do they help students do?

Artists are catalysts for interdisciplinary programming at the Kinney Center and play a central part in the Renaissance of the Earth project. One recent artist in residence is ecoartspace member, Suzette Marie Martin, whose exhibit Apocalypse: Science and Myth in 2022-2023 offered viewers an allegory of consequences for industrialized humanity’s cumulative, destructive behaviors, by layering data from climate and environmental research with the Biblical tale of banishment from paradise, returning to past stories of apocalypse to highlight our current eco-anxieties. Her catalogue can be found here.

One of our ambitions with our Artist in Residence Program more specifically is to foster interdisciplinary explorations and cross-campus collaborations. Suzette’s original work “Tipping Points” was featured in The Futuring Lab (Architecture Department) exhibit “Elemental Futuring” which included short talks from artists, scholars, and climate scientists. Happily, as a direct outgrowth of her residency at the Kinney Center, Martin was selected as a 2024 Artist in Residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.. She is now at work on a new project creating an herbal centered on biodiversity loss with the research she embarked on here at the Kinney Center and continued through the Folger. The afterlife of the Renaissance of the Earth is almost immeasurable!

Thank you so much Liz and Marjorie! This residency sounds like such a dream!

April 2025 e-Newsletter for subscribers is  here

March 2025 e-Newsletter for subscribers is here

Within the Forest : Without the Forest by DOMM Architecture Studio, 2024

Nature Needs Art More Than Ever:
Arts in Nature Program at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum in Kentucky

Interview by Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein

Bernheim Forest and Arboretum focuses on horticulture, conservation, education, and arts in an expansive forest area larger than Manhattan Island with 350,000 visitors a year. Arts in Nature Curator, Jenny Zeller, describes the history of their programs, highlighting opportunities through Bernheim's Artist Residency Program and newly established L+A+N+D (Landscape + Art + Nature + Design): an experience of discovery initiative for which they are accepting applications until March 24.

Jenny, Bernheim Forest and Arboretum combines art and science through a landscape “infused” with art. What makes this combination powerful and where did the inspiration for this come?

Art engages people in ways that are different from science and education. Art attaches people’s hearts to what they find important and to makes emotional connections which inspire change. And Bernheim believes that nature needs art now more than ever as scientific facts alone have done very little in the fight against climate change. 

Nature-inspired art has been a part of Bernheim Forest and Arboretum since its inception in 1929 due to the foresight of our founder Isaac W Bernheim who envisioned this land as a space for nature-based education, recreational activities, and a venue for high-quality artistic expression. 96 years later, art is what distinguishes us from similar organizations in the region and far beyond.

This vision of integrating art with nature took shape in 1980 when Louisville sculptor Paul Fields won the proposal to create a significant entryway artwork for the Sun in Shade Trail. Shortly after moving on-site to complete the two-year project, the Artist-in-Residence program was born. 

Call for Proposals, Bernheim L+A+N+D Artist Residency, 2025

Your L+A+N+D program focuses on the connections between humans, nature, biodiversity, conservation, sustainability, landscape, climate change and justice. What conversations do you hope to provoke by inviting artists there?

Artists can inspire new ways of thinking, deepen emotional connections to nature, and motivate collective action toward a more sustainable future. L+A+N+D celebrates innovative design concepts for immersive outdoor installations on a grand scale that spark imaginations and conversations.

Artists and creatives offer unique perspectives that challenge and expand our understanding of the connections between humans, nature, and sustainability. Through the L+A+N+D program, we hope to spark conversations about our relationship with the environment, the urgency of climate action, and the role of art in fostering ecological awareness. 

ACRE by Anne Peabody, planted 2023

Within your space, the potential for projects and impact is huge! What unique opportunities does this amount of space and community allow?

Bernheim’s exceptional size of 16,319 acres, offers unique opportunities for environmental stewardship, education, and community engagement. The expansive space supports diverse ecosystems, large-scale conservation efforts, and wildlife protection, while also providing visitors with immersive experiences in nature. We offer over 40-miles of hiking trails, a 630-acre arboretum, research initiatives, a 17-acre natural children’s playground, a 4-acre edible garden, a robust arts program, immersive outdoor installations, and hands-on learning programs through an amazing nature-based educational programs that helps foster a deeper connection between people and the environment. This blend of preserved wilderness and public interaction creates a rare balance between conservation and community involvement. Bernheim provides an endless source of inspiration to all, but especially to artists.

Through the L+A+N+D program, you are inviting international, national, and regional proposals with creatives of all kinds and multidisciplinary teams. What have been some project highlights?

Our inaugural year of L+A+N+D, brought mostly individual artists and architectural teams, from all over the world to Clermont, Kentucky, including Chili, Turkey, Norway, and from states across the United States as well as regional representation from the Louisville region.

Through works like Chrysalis by Nikki Pike and Sylvan Sycamore by Stuart Ian Frost, we explore nature’s fragility and resilience, highlighting the impact of invasive species and extreme weather on ecosystems. Becoming Nutrient by Nicole Banowetz and BIOS by Radix Lucis delve into the microscopic and symbiotic processes that sustain biodiversity, while Within the Forest: Without the Forest by DOMM reimagines human interaction with nature through architectural interventions.

Studio MAYO Architects addresses water scarcity at a human tangible scale through H2Oh! by emphasizing the planet’s limited water resources, while Bloom, Wither, Repeat by Jonathan Pellitteri visually translates rainfall conditions into kinetic movement. The interactive elements of At Least We Looked Good created by the Bernheim Team encourage sensory engagement and critical reflection on fast fashion’s hidden environmental toll.

For future projects, we are hoping for low maintenance works (LOL) that are multi-sensory, thought-provoking, playful, and whimsical while remaining both physically and conceptually accessible, so that all visitors can meaningfully engage.

Becoming Nutrient by Nicole Banowetz, 2024

Engaging with sustainability and climate resiliency are at the heart of your mission. These topics are dire yet contested. How has your approach as an institution shifted to accommodate these challenges?

Bernheim’s mission is connecting people to nature, a vision rooted in the values of our founder, Isaac Wolfe Bernheim. In 1929, his belief that this land should be a place for all, regardless of race, creed, or social status, was remarkably progressive, especially in rural Kentucky. 

Today, we remain committed to upholding his vision, ensuring that Bernheim is a welcoming space where everyone, regardless of background, beliefs, or political affiliation, can experience the benefits of nature and find a sense of belonging. We continue to fulfill our mission while addressing climate resiliency through a science-based, human-centered approach and have become more outspoken on environmental issues as we witness and experience the devastating impacts of a more extreme climate.

At Least We Looked Good by Bernheim Team, 2024

What a beautiful statement of coexistence and thriving on a nature preserve focused on resiliency, research, and education. What changes have you noticed in your local environment and what conservation measures have you integrated into the landscape to support its resilience? How has Bernheim responded to these changes?

Kentucky's environment has experienced increasingly severe weather in recent years, reflecting broader climate trends. More frequent and intense storms, heavy rainfall, and strong winds have led to flooding, tree loss, and disruptions to natural ecosystems. 

Rising temperatures and prolonged dry spells have also heightened the risk of drought, further stressing local landscapes. These extreme weather patterns not only impact the region’s biodiversity but also affect surrounding communities, reinforcing the urgency of climate resilience and conservation efforts.

Guided by our Climate Crisis Action Plan, we implement best practices in energy and water conservation, education, and land stewardship. Recent efforts include acquiring the 182-acre Buffalo Creek Tract to protect Bardstown’s water supply and securing a conservation easement on a neighboring 856 acres to safeguard habitats. Our wetland and stream restoration projects enhance biodiversity, reduce flooding, and improve water quality. We are deploying art to change hearts and minds, with the addition of our new L+A+N+D program and recent living art installation by Anne Peabody entitled ACRE, that connects people to nature and Bernheim’s history through 81 Merlot Redbud trees outlining the perimeter of a one-acre space, representing the daily rate of tree loss during the iron-ore industry’s peak. This installation serves as both a historical reflection on conservation and a breathtaking seasonal spectacle.

To Apply to the L+A+N+D program here

Please Don’t Cut Me Down:
Donna Bassin’s “Portraits of a Precarious Earth”
at The Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island

Through May 5, 2025

Review by Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein

A golden lit Fachwerk building stands welcoming guests as the sun sets over the ocean in gilded Newport in Rhode Island. The landscape is captivating on the drive to the museum, where elegant and impressive bridges cross marshes and sparkling bodies of water in the surrounding bays. As the sun sets over the glistening waters and lush vegetation, I am awestruck by the natural beauty interwoven with mansions built with the wealth of early industrialization. Yet, I am told, that Newport is a place of contradictions, where extreme wealth meets poverty and underfunded schools, where development projects threaten the pristine environment. These contrasts met me in both Donna Bassin’s environmental photography collages and in conversations at the opening of “Portraits of the Precarious Earth”.

Donna Bassin has built a career surveying her reactions to a range of injustices internationally through photography and collage. Her work is emotionally provocative integrating her perspective as a psychologist as well as historical events. Its range includes Japanese, Burmese, and US-American societal reparations through photographic collages and mixed-media, often cross-referencing themes and traditions to visualize overarching hopes of healing societal inequities and woes.

Tackling environmental degradation in the “Portraits of a Precarious Earth” Bassin's uses assemblage, color, and repurposed golden frames to contrast historical and contemporary images of the US environmental landscape. The historic photographs portray thriving ecosystems mounted onto monotone depleted landscapes with red embroidery thread or Japanese Washi mending techniques. It is meant to evoke “themes of repair, renewal, and resilience in the face of ecological challenges… (that) intertwine loss and recovery, encouraging reflection on the human impact on the planet”. The series is an extension of her global perspective and work as a trauma therapist. Speaking with Bassin, she emphasized the larger scale images of sequoia trees on four of the museum’s walls. For her, their incredible age, size, and international abundance embody the consequences of human-made devastation and the passage of time that her series focuses on.

The changing tides of history seem ever present in the museum rooms, where Bassin’s paintings mix alongside selections from the Newport Art Museum’s historical landscape collection in a salon-style curation. They also interact directly with other industrial-era symbols. Alone the wooden architectural embellishments that define the museum’s interior provide foundations for conversation surrounding the wealth and exploitation extrapolated from Bassin’s sacrificed landscapes. 

Speaking to the Museum’s Interim Director, Ruth Taylor, who has lived in the area for several decades, she tells me stories about whole beaches full of lobsters “so many you could just reach down and pick them up”, and of the inconsistent oyster harvests, and how local mismanagement of resources has led to diminished wildlife presence on the island overall. Clearly Bassin’s environmental reflections hold true in Newport, just as they do elsewhere. Ruth introduces me to Danielle Ogden, the Creative Director of the museum and curator of the show, who greets my questions about her plans for the traditionally historical museum enthusiastically. Passionate about both contemporary response to their historical collection, local history and environment, and photography, Diane has a whole series of environmentally focused exhibitions planned for the coming year and a half. In fact, the museum now has a residency program that provides month-long housing for accepted artists to make response work for exhibition in their spaces. 

Lively museum halls bustle with multi-faceted conversations surrounding the environment as a local Land Trust meeting empties from one of the rooms into the exhibition space. A large scroll depicting an ocean-scape embraces the rows of chairs, just as the Aquidneck island where Newport sits is embraced by the ocean. At the entrance of the room, several Aquidneck Land Trust employees patiently respond to my flurry of questions. From preserves to farmland, the Land Trust conserves both the local landscape as well as prepare the island for resilience in the face of storms and other natural events. Efforts have been made to build natural infrastructure to help mitigate fresh water salination from ocean storms while using nature-based solutions to decontaminate the marshes and regenerate native wildlife.

Still, they explain, other challenges like ground water contamination from new developments and extreme weather mean that the finite fresh water resource on the island needs a lot of treatment to be safe to drink; since this makes the water taste strange, many on the island decide to drink bottled water instead and I am told the landfill is almost at capacity. These are understandable choices that perpetuate the destructive cycle leading to the changing landscape. Bassin’s work shines a colorful spotlight on these changes on the neighboring walls.

Bassin struck an important note when underlining the future as a result of the past, where a next generation in our nation struggles to find footing on eroding ground. Though the museum is situated in the historical district of Newport, full of mansions and large estates, the contrasts between this pristine environment and the realities of many of its residents is ever-present. Behind its embellished face, many locals struggle with underfunded public schools, strange tasting water, and growing economic uncertainty. The island struggles like many places globally with little industry or local economic opportunity beyond the service industry and tourism.
Partnering with local schools, the Newport Art Museum makes efforts to integrate the next generation in the art-making process through workshops and programming. Students from several grade levels worked with Donna Bassin and responded with artwork to her exhibition on display in a second building on the museum site. Their response works feature industrial smokestacks, landfills, extreme weather events, and bad air quality juxtaposed with colorful sunsets and beaches. 

These are contemporary challenges that Bassin’s and the museum’s historical landscapes could not have imagined, yet they are the first things that come to mind to these young people. It is an awareness that makes me shudder, after a striking evening presenting the changing times on the world we live, through history, and efforts for a better future. As we say goodbye, Donna Bassin stands between one of her proud and resilient sequoia trees and a green painted wall with quotes from the kids written in chalk. The writing on the wall begins with, “Please don’t cut me down”.

Fjord, 2024. Organic peace silk, thread, wax, fermented mineral mud dye, natural deterioration occurring over six months, 30 x 47 Image courtesy of Jeff Cords. 

The Fragile Power of Sund: Time, Tides, and Textiles in Moira Bateman’s Solo Exhibition

Review By Laura Laptsevitch 

Moira Bateman’s Sund (Notes from the Sea), on view through March 8 at Form and Content in Minneapolis, Minnesota, presents a compelling meditation on the vulnerability of our waterways and the urgent need for their protection. This exhibition, drawing from Bateman’s summer 2024 residency in Ålvik, Norway, prompts a sobering reflection on Norway’s industrial fishing industries and the pollution of our water. Sund is topical—at a time when textiles are experiencing a resurgence in contemporary art, and environmental consciousness is more relevant than ever, Sund stands at the intersection of both, a powerful and timely moment.

Details of Seadrift 1 (left) and 2 (right), 2024, sea-weathered woven plastic fisheries “big bag” remnant recovered in Hardangerfjord, Norway, 20 x 41 inches. Images courtesy of Arts District Imageworks.

Entering the gallery, the first piece along the wall is Seadrift 1-3. Recovered in Hardangerfjord, Norway, Seadrift sets the tone for Sund. It is one of just two types of found objects present in the show. With Sund (Notes from the Sea), there is an essential desire to give voice to the landscape. Seadrift 1-3 presents a strong voice. 

These objects were recovered by Bateman in a Norwegian fjord—a deep, elongated, narrow inlet carved by glaciers filled with seawater. Leftovers of the salmon farming industry, these fragments were once a “big bag” used to transport fish feed. According to notes provided by Dr. Marte Haave, these fragments are, more than likely, several years old. A great deal of litter washes up in Norway’s fjord; plastic waste remains a problem. The bags, now Seadrift 1, 2, & 3, have been run down by sea currents and weathered by rock abrasions. What is left is the irregularly shaped plastic weave broken down into bits. 

One can’t help but look closely. I noticed the silhouette is similar to the shapes found in topographical maps—both land and water. I was not off in my estimation—Bateman’s degree in landscape ecology and landscape architecture has a hand in the choice of silhouette. With an ode to maps, the presentation of Seadrift 1-3 puts forth another connection: a reference to the scientific. 

Seadrift 1-3 are presented like specimens, arranged neatly and purposefully along the wall. One is urged to look closely; this close looking, this watchfulness, is yet another way to examine and experience the pieces of Sund. I can’t help but examine the rest of the gallery with the same careful eye. 

Sund (Notes from the Sea) at Form+Content Gallery in Minneapolis, 2025. Right: Crosscurrent, 2024, organic peace silk, thread, wax, fermented mineral mud dye, natural deterioration occurring over six months, 50 x 41 inches. Left: Just Beyond Fyksesund, 2024, organic peace silk, thread, wax, fermented mineral mud dye, pigments, 48 x 36 inches.

Following Seadrift 1-3 are Crosscurrent (right) and Just Beyond Fyksesund (left). Both are made from organic peace silk, thread, wax, and fermented mineral mud dye. Just Beyond Fyksesund, though, includes the addition of natural pigments to achieve its color. 

The object itself is equally as important as the slow, intricate process. Bateman utilizes a fabric dyeing technique to achieve the deep color, using fermented mineral mud dye, a practice that combines plant tannin's, mineral-rich mud, and microorganisms to dye cloth. Through working with mud on site in the natural waterways, the organic matter feeds the microorganisms in the mud, converting the mud’s natural iron into ferrous sulfate. It’s a delicate balance of experimenting with the dyeing processes and letting the world’s forces naturally erode the fabric. 

Crosscurrent, 2024, organic peace silk, thread, wax fermented mineral mud dye, natural deterioration occurring over six months, 50 x 41 inches. Image courtesy of Jeff Cords.

Perhaps the most striking piece in Sund (Notes from the Sea) is Crosscurrent. The way the silk is extended from the wall, floating so gracefully, with such intricate cast shadows and erosion, placing attention on the slow process of decay—I am convinced Crosscurrent could not be replicated in any other fashion. Time is a key element.  

It's powerful viewing Crosscurrent and Just Beyond Fyksesund together. Both are so different. Though each have endured the same elements for the same length of time, Just Beyond Fyksesund did not experience the same type of decay as Crosscurrent. There are no holes, no abrasions; just wrinkles, creases, and the deep hue. There’s an element of unpredictability with Bateman’s process; two fabrics can be treated in the same fashion yet experience aging so differently. Just Beyond Fyksesund stayed intact, while Crosscurrent sustained rips, cuts, and gashes. Maybe that’s the point: one way or another, through time or chance, we all experience the natural outcome of the life cycle. 

One element that stands the test of time is rock.  

Emiliania huxleyi, 2024, Plastifolie, 41 x 37 inches. Image courtesy of Form+Content Gallery.

Sund’s next piece, Emiliania huxleyi, contains the second found object—the cast of a rock recovered at Hardangerfjord. This rock is the agent that pinned Seadrift 1, or the “big bag,” in a rock crevice along the fjord at Norheimsund. With 49 individual castings, the rock has given shape to many of the individual parts of Emiliania huxleyi.

I cannot help but notice the color. The turquoise is distinct. With an overwhelming dominance of dark neutral colors, Emiliania huxleyi reminds us where we are: deep in ocean water. In this work, the hue can be credited to Plastifolie, a Norwegian plastic wrap composed of 70% recycled plastic. When layered, the blue-green color forms. The same turquoise of the Plastifolie can be seen at Hardangerfjord every few years in the spring. For just a few weeks, a type of microscopic marine algae blooms—a primary single-cell phytoplankton called Emiliania huxleyi, which gives Hardangerfjord the bright turquoise hue. 

Every element of Sund ties back to place. This is not limited to color. Even the shape of the rock, the elongated oval, is the very shape you would find examining phytoplankton under a microscope. Bateman has a knack for examining things closely—an understatement with Sund’s next piece, Seadrift 1.  

Seadrift 1, 2024, scanned and enlarged image of sea-weathered woven plastic fisheries “big bag” remnants recovered in Hardangerfjord, Norway, print on archival paper, 50 x 96 inches. Image courtesy of Form+Content Gallery.

Seadrift 1 is a scanned, enlarged image of the woven plastic material seen previously in the gallery. It pictures the sea-weathered plastic fishers, or “big bag,” printed on archival paper. Seadrift 1 commands attention. At 50 x 96 inches, Seadrift 1 has a particular presence; it cannot be ignored. There’s beauty in seeing so clearly—being engulfed in the archival print. At a high resolution, 850 ppi, I can see the smallest of details, including the razor-thin, individual hairs of the plastic. There is some irony; instead of a small bag in a big ocean, we have a big bag in a small gallery. It shows the complexity, even the beauty, of the polluted materials in our water. 

Perspective matters with Seadrift 1. At such a large scale, one could imagine that we are now the algae at Ålvik’s fjord, confronted with a vast, foreign object. As non-biodegradable plastic, it serves as a toxic force to our water. Had Bateman not recovered the object in Hardangerfjord, it would likely remain wedged in the rock and continue to interfere with the natural ecosystem. 

In Sund, one object that, conversely, serves the ecosystem is the organic peace silk. Unlike woven plastic, it is non-toxic and biodegradable, even feeding the microorganisms in the mud and water. 

Sund (Notes from the Sea) at Form+Content Gallery in Minneapolis, 2025. Right: Fjord, 2024, organic peace silk, thread, wax, fermented mineral mud dye, natural deterioration occurring over six months, 30 x 47 inches. Left: In the Night Sea at Fosse, 2024, organic peace silk, wax, green indigo, fermented mineral mud dye, natural deterioration occurring over six months, 30 x 29 inches.

 
Similar to Crosscurrent and Just Beyond Fyksesund, we see the following objects on the left side wall: Fjord (right) and In the Night Sea at Fosse (left). I find myself drawn to the weathered portions of the silk. Instantly, I noticed Fjord.  

Fjord (top image) is anthropomorphic. The way the fabric looks human, the way the holes gape open, uncanny, so wound-like, the way it aged so much like leather, the wrinkles, the creases—it summons a quiet, sober reverence. 

There is respect for Fjord and a deep compassion for the history of the silk. Perhaps the same can be said for In the Night Sea at Fosse, Crosscurrent, and Just Beyond Fyksesund. There is a slow, powerful, and irreversible change that occurs in the fabrics, an oscillation between nurture and neglect. Leaving the materials out for weeks—to take them back—cleaning, drying, straightening, stitching, and waxing; there is an element of healing. 

The fabric holds a type of presence. It takes on the essence of the place, the memory of the water. The history is held in its delicate silk fibers—the erosion serves as a channel for embodiment. I find satisfaction, even redemption, in their display.  

Sund, 2024, video and sound installation including video Sea at Songerfjord, Norway (Bateman), with Sound recording Underwater by biologist Dr. Heike Vester, Vestfjorden, Norway, including noise pollution affecting whales’ communication, navigation, and feeding. Image courtesy of Form+Content gallery.

I find a similar satisfaction in Sund. In the video and sound installation, Sund shows an upside-down 80-second loop of the sea at Sognefjord. Its sound, an underwater recording by biologist Dr. Heike Vester in Vesterfjorden, features the water’s noise pollution. Composed of textiles, found objects, and now, time-based media, Sund (Notes from the Sea) positions itself in the zeitgeist of contemporary art, a show of new mixed media. 

The noise pollution, boat engines, and seismic airgun explosions hugely affect whales' communication, navigation, and feeding. Much like Seadrift 1, there is an element of perspective. What would it feel like to exist in this water? What would it be like to see through the water? 

Detail on Left: Foss 1, 2024 (left), organic peace silk, flat silk thread, wax, fermented mineral mud dye, natural deterioration occurring over six months, 8 x 13 inches. Right: Foss 7, 2024, organic peace silk, flat silk thread, wax, fermented mineral mud dye, natural deterioration occurring over six months, 13 x 17 inches. Images courtesy of Jeff Cords.

The show ends much like it began. Foss 1-7, the final piece in the gallery, is made up of a group of small organic peace silk samples, much like the fragments of Seadrift 1-3. This work is delicate. The scale is intimate. Foss 1-7 shows diligence, confidence, and careful restraint.  

Detail: Foss 7, 2024, organic peace silk, flat silk thread, wax, fermented mineral mud dye, natural deterioration occurring over six months,13 x 17 inches. Image courtesy of Jeff Cords.

The stitches are microscopic, carefully formed from the back of the piece. Looking at Foss 7, I see the most tiny, almost unnoticeable stitches. Just as with Fjord, In the Night Sea at Fosse, Crosscurrent, and Just Beyond Fyksesund, there is a healing element within Foss 1-7—even more so with its intimate scale. The cleaning, drying, and stitching are all facets of healing; they point back to the history of textiles, and moreover, the history of women. Women, the ones who largely occupied this practice of textiles, quilting, embroidery, and weaving, are natural healers. 

Moira Bateman is more than a textile artist; she is an environmentalist, an environmental artist, and a healer.

Sund (Notes from the Sea) makes manifest the moments we forget in our history. Through the soaking of organic peace silk, Fjord, In the Night Sea at Fosse, Crosscurrent, Just Beyond Fyksesund, and Foss 1-7 provide language and shape to the delicate, wild phenomenon that is our earth and ecosystem. This work is embodiment: being in the world and being an object in the world. Bateman’s work contextualizes history. Ultimately, Sund is a witness. 

The environmental forces shaping our waters demand our attention, reflection, and action. When I look at contemporary art in 2025, I see a platform ripe for good. The United Nations has developed a set of 17 goals to improve economic, social, and environmental conditions by 2030. Looking at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, I see Bateman and the show Sund (Notes from the Sea) fulfilling seven.

Quality Education (4) Clean Water and Sanitation (6) Decent work and economic growth, including sustainable economic growth (8) Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, including sustainable industrialization (9) Responsible Consumption and Production (12) Climate Action (13) Life Below Water (14) Partnerships for the Goals (17). 

We like to think of Earth as invincible or impenetrable. But really, Earth and its ecosystems are as fragile and delicate as our very own lives. The ecosystem, the climate—it is a tender, coordinated dance. The earth is gentle; we must be gentle with her. Earth is more than our home—Earth is who we are; we don’t simply occupy the world—our fibers, our DNA, our being comes out of places of earth and water, and ultimately… goes back in. Why are we not cultivating, nurturing, and protecting the very environment, the very being, that nurtures us? Sund (Notes from the Sea) bears witness to this truth.

Moira Bateman in Hardangerfjord, 2024. This picture was taken during her residency at Kunstnarhuset Messen (Arthouse Messen) in Ålvik, Norway. Image courtesy of the artist. 

Laura Laptsevitch is an art educator and art historian based in the greater Minneapolis area. She holds a Master’s degree in Art History and Visual Culture from Lindenwood University and a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. With experience spanning K-12 classrooms, community arts programming, and museum education, Laptsevitch has led public art initiatives and contributed to community-based projects throughout the twin-cities.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

February 10, 2025

This month we recognize      Ashton  Phillips    in an interview with Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein.

Life and Agency in a Polluted World: Ashton Phillip’s choreographies in Material, Body, and Interspecies Systems

Ashton Phillips exists and creates work at intersections that blossom into expansive universes of possibility often left out and attacked by cultural norms and laws. Integrating polluted earth with decontaminating species, refuse with refuge, and experiential choreographies integrating the viewer, his work expands past materiality and into life. In our interview, Ashton discusses the power of experience as embodied through interactions between the body, earth, and cultural consciousness to empower and heal in the face of destructive forces and toxic consequences.

Ashton, you have been on such an impactful journey through your work. For example, you grew up in “Chemical Valley” West Virginia and now focus on pollution in material, identity, and land. How has your experience of the polluted environment guided your mission as an artist?

I have always felt like I was living inside of a contaminated, impure, or injured body/world. And I have always felt a certain sadness in the face of that. The other slogan for the place I grew up, besides Chemical Valley, was “Wild and Wonderful.” And it was true. That place was simultaneously wild, vibrant, lush, watery, and chemical, toxic, desiccated, dying. Just like all of us.

There was a very palpable tension to being alive—or being a living body—inside that polluted ecosystem. Something like dysphoria. My practice emerged from this dysphoric/euphoric tension. Can we see this pollution and the fear it brings—the disgust, the grief—as teachers or even friends of our own precariousness, adaptability, and interdependence? Holding it close like a hungry baby bird with a broken wing?

I do not fear the pollution anymore. I fear the people who do not see it or pretend it is not there.

 

Wow, that hits home… What a powerful statement about the consequences of embedded hypocracy. You also have a background in law advocacy as well as being a professional artist. How do these contrasting professions inform your empowerment practice?

I no longer practice law, but my relationship to my art practice is very much informed by my training and experience as a lawyer. Lawyers think facts “argue” better than rhetoric or moral appeals. And that the only facts that count are those that can be admitted into evidence.

My socially-engaged, research-based, public art practice is not that different in method, but my audience is no longer a judge or jury. I am not trying to convince the public that I am “right” about anything or “slap them on the wrist” through the law. Instead, I want people to feel something, to be confused, to make intuitive connections across time and space, to find a glimmer of desire or hope in the pits of despair, to forget the cis-hetero-normative power structures and systems of language that dominate their everyday headspace and tune in to the patterns of relation that connect us to the ground, the insect, the waste Styrofoam floating in the surf, and the bird that carries it away.

When you describe it this way, it sounds like your work is about adapting culture through various methods including sound, performance, participatory installation, and direct environmental response. What factors guide your choice of medium and approach to a work?

A big change came in grad school, when I was challenged to think critically about my “viewer” and what kind of experience I wanted for them. Was my work the “finished” art object that resulted from my experience of connection with materials and place? Or was it the experience itself? Did I want to share that experience with my “viewer” and, if so, what is the most impactful way to do that? Is my work a story about my own life and growth or is it an offering to others to engage with the world differently based on my own experience?

It worked. My first semester in grad school was liberating and cathartic. I tried every material and medium/technology that held my curiosity. I gathered materials, like words - yards of used rubber roofing, chiffon mixed with steel, clay with silicone, and concrete casts with feathers, wool, house paint, and latex tubing inside. I stacked, lashed, cast, balanced, and sewed these materials together on the floor, hanging them from the ceiling, stapling them to the wall. I avoided permanent adhesives and attachments as a kind of creative death. I wanted everything to be mobile and unfixed - to keep the parts moving, unstable, and ready to be broken down and reworked.

Instead of making separate stable works with individual titles and dates, these were improvisational choreographies of material and flow - a performance of material itself and an activation of space that included the body of the viewer in the dance. My art practice began and continues to tune out of the world of argument, bullying, screaming, moralizing, shame, and tuning into to the immediacy, pleasure - and sometimes wonder - of materials, color, the ground beneath me and the interspecies systems of life and agency all around me.

You are engaging such complex systems through your work’s materiality, interactions, and site-specificity. What does your sourcing process look like? And what considerations do you make in choosing materials that will interact with each other?

My work is relational—a way of thinking/feeling/being with a place, a creature, an unfolding ecosystem of contamination, trauma, and the possibility of metamorphosis and repair—and inviting others into that experience. I choose materials that interact with each other according to their own animacies, so that the work can include agencies, marks, and sounds reflecting these larger systems of interrelated power and subjectivity. 

For example, I started working with plastic-metabolizing mealworms and Styrofoam plastic because I was fascinated by the fact that these creatures could biodegrade plastic in their bodies without any harm to themselves, and I wanted to understand more about how this worked. This power changed so much of my thinking about the world.

An essay I wrote about my interspecies art practice was published in a special issue on Trans* Ecologies by Trans Studies Quarterly. The essay articulates my thoughts about how structuring spaces to the sensory preferences of plastic-metabolizing insects can also produce a sort of speculative refuge for trans people and others who are otherwise subject to the punishing cis/white gaze in public space.

The connections you are creating between Trans*& Queer Ecologies and interspecies collaborations sit at a really important intersection between empowerment and awareness. It makes me wonder how your mission has changed over time, and in response to how the US culture has/is developed/ing?

The more recent rise of anti-trans panic-baiting and the wholesale removal of legal protections for trans people at the State and Federal levels has also impacted my relationship to my “viewer” and my sense of purpose. I feel a responsibility to speak to the world as a trans person now and to make the trans-ness of my work more explicit. I will not be bullied into silence by these fear mongers in chief. And I hope my voice and practice can empower others to keep making, speaking, and connecting in defiance of these disturbing efforts to silence and erase us from public life.

This week, another trans artist asked me what I am doing as a teacher to hold space for trans, queer, and BIPOC students in the face of this disturbing onslaught coming from the new Presidential Administration. I told her:

I am trying to turn myself and my students toward the queerness and trans-ness of the nonhuman world, which does not give a sh*t about our laws or taxonomies.
Because the future is trans.

Ashton S. Phillips     is a socially and ecologically-engaged artist and writer working with dirt, water, pollution, plasticity, and interspecies agents of (dis)repair as primary materials, collaborators, and teachers. He brings an ecological, trauma-informed approach to his teaching, prioritizing collaboration, play, speculative (un)making, and embodied research over top-down modalities. He holds an MFA in Studio Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art; a JD from the George Washington University Law School; and a BA from the University of Maryland, where he served as the first openly trans president of the university’s LGBT student caucus. His creative and critical writing have been published by Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, Art and Cake, Cambridge University Press, and Trans Studies Quarterly. Phillips is a resident artist at Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, California, where he maintains a living colony of polystyrene-metabolizing mealworm/beetles and a plastic-fertilized garden as trans ecological praxis. When he is not making, writing, teaching, and caring for metamorphosing creatures, he serves as a creative consultant and trauma-informed art teacher for survivors of adverse-childhood experiences at the SHARK Clinic at Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Hospital and curates exhibitions and performances at Monte Vista Projects in Los Angeles, California. ashtonsphillips.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©Ashton Phillips, "“3 - Feast & Famine,” installation still, mealworms in larval, pupae, and beetle forms, partially consumed styrofoam, offertory flowers and found feather, 2021-2023; “Install 5 – Feast & Famine,” 2021-2023; “Worm Hole -A Portal for Plastic Bodies," 2024, Photo by Gemma Lopez; “Installation 6 – Feast & Famine”, 2021-2023; "Womb/Tomb/BooM – A Refuge for Plastic Bodies," 2023, live mealworms, live darkling beetles, partially consumed styrofoam, egg tempera, handsewn mosquito netting, pine, faux leather, aluminum flashing, sound equipment, synthetic fur, plywood, violet vinyl and acrylic sheet, stereo cable, contaminated dirt, carrots, and flowering weeds, 15 x 18 x 20 feet;portrait of the artist by Jill Fannon in Bmore Art Magazine (below).