Resident Artist Research Project - Bell Museum
1. The pandemic
I have been working on a few projects for a while now, but officially my Resident Artist Research Project at the Bell Museum, kicked off at the start of June. The residency will carry from June through July, and then pick up again for the month of September in preparation for an exhibition and workshop at the Bell. I’ll be creating some short videos to share online, and adding blogs posts about specif projects right here. Thank you to the Bell Museum for this opportunity!
Starting a residency during a pandemic is of course unexpected and not ideal. That said, the work I’m creating focuses on being outside, and having moments of personal connection. I believe that the more we foster tangible relationships with the natural world, the healthier the planet. Everyone needs safe and comfortable access to the landscape from children to political and spiritual leaders. From my vantage point in southern Minnesota, the pandemic has brought a lot more people outside.
What access points are near you? Where can you go without a car or public transit? Can you bring your kids outside as you homeschool? Is easy access to greenspace a basic need? These questions are important to ask, especially as we struggle to mitigate the causes of our warming climate, especially during a pandemic, especially as we face the inequity clogging every facet of life. It’s difficult not to have an abundance of cynicism right now. Even the "outdoors,” like much of our society is not always a welcoming a place for everyone. I have to hope that together we are approaching something new, some new meaningful restructuring of our values, and I hope that greater access and appreciation of the land are part of meaningful change.
I am lucky to live adjacent to a county park in Southern, MN between Mankato and Saint Peter. I spend a lot of time hiking the ravines, deer trails, and common paths maintained by the park. Before the pandemic, in preparation for this residency, I spent a few weeks in northern Minnesota. And while I am making work about the forests up there, my local county park has become a focal point for the daytoday of this Bell residency.
This park has been processed and manipulated, is surrounded by a watershed of eroding farmland, and certainly does not have the grandeur of the northwoods, but it's exactly the type of place that should be celebrated and expanded. Of the many things we are processing during this intense moment, I hope we are learning to better appreciate the outdoors spaces close to home.
Before covid, I mostly had the park to myself. Today, the trails are packed, joggers, anglers, walkers, pot smokers, dog walkers...people of all ages. You can really see the impact on the park. Deer trails are becoming worn footpaths, the main paths are getting wider, they are bringing in more toilets, starting to spray the stinging nettles, adding more parking. All this action, all these people, together, we are increasing erosion and hampering the undergrowth. And even though this new presence dulls my immediate experience, I’m glad we are all here.
The more people that love these places, as much as the monumental vistas of the north shore, the richer our daytoday lives. We have to meet our landscape spaces where they are at. The more people outside, the more likely we'll create new parks, the more likely our leaders will make responsible environmental policy decisions. As much as I love being alone in this park, I hope once the pandemic subsides, these people keep coming back.
Side stream at 7 Mile Creek County Park - June 2020