thoughts for tomorrow, movements for today is an archiving project to witness, learn, honor and inspire ideas and actions that shape respect and care between people and their living environments. I use videography to learn care practices and transcorporeal embodiment––between human bodies, water bodies, watersheds, and more than human species–in the context of the climate crisis. This practice produces video recordings of concrete actions, which I call movements for today. In conjunction, I gather written texts, audio video recordings of people’s ideas, thoughts and methods of slowing down climate crisis and building equitable future. This collection, consisting of both my original footage and material found, I call thoughts for tomorrow. With the recordings generated and material aggregated, I produce videos, installations, performances and gatherings to share and activate the archive in the effort to nurture and inspire more connections between people and the ecosystem they live within.
Path:
In March 2019, the project emerged during my residency at MARSH where I recorded visions and practices of the MARSH’s founding members-Esther Neff, Beth Neff and Kiai Gilje. Shortly after I spent a week with Raphaelle Ottones and recorded her practice of taking care of her organic vineyard in Richeaume, France. In both places, I noticed different gestures and sounds from their actions and nature in their engagements with land, water, and the plants. Inspired by those visions and actions, I wanted to find ways to engage with natural areas in New York City the place where I live and work.
In 2020, I started to participate in numerous NYC Parks stewardship programs: cutting non-native plants, picking up discarded items, planting sea grasses and trees, and monitoring horseshoe crabs. From my experience and memories of doing these stewardship actions, I begun recording others doing these actions. From the recordings, I am exploring different ways to activate the archive, some of which can be seen below:
ACTIVATIONS:
work environmental at FEED Media Art Center, November 2023-January 2024
movements for today (showcase of publicly available videos)
Seed session at The Nature of City Festival, March, 2022
Partners:
MARSH (2019 Artists in Residency), Walter Dundervill, Culture Push, Inc (2021 Associate Artist), Brooklyn Art Exchange (2021 Fall Parent Artist Space Grant), iLAND, New York City Parks, The Nature of Cities (2022 Festival Participation), Coney Island Beautification Project, Nora Almeida FEED (2023 Artists in Residency)
Featured image: video still from the recording of Saltmarsh cordgrass at Sunset Cove, Queens, Queens, NYC.
