Dream Garden in the Anthropocene
2021 - Ongoing
Earthwork / Land art
A 30ft x 300ft land lot on Eastern Long Island NY, the ancestral territories of the Shinnecock & Montaukett peoples. The artist purchased the lot in 2021 and is slowly creating a space for regenerative earthwork, land-based research & artistic practice. The project began in 2021 by clearing a small space for a cover crop & pollinator garden. The site is a wooded area that has a significant percentage of ghost trees, or trees that have died due to climate change.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to own a piece of land. As a child of the Anthropocene, the desire stems from not only wholesome visions, but also from an existentially dark place.
The land is overwhelmingly alive. Spiritually and physically so. In each square foot, life teeming and unexpected. To be in dialogue with her - she is incredibly complex. It’s as though I am taking the temperature of a creature who has been alive much longer than me, but also aspects of her are much younger than me. Time is a mystery.
I want to flip everything that has gotten us to this place (of extreme climate change).
I want my paradigm of land to envision this kind of offering:
A Land Art of color, of nutrients, of growth, of decay
Honor the law of return, the law of reciprocity.
Decolonize land from the violence of Capitalism and White Supremacy and these methods that have deteriorated the planet in the Anthropocene.
Sequester carbon dioxide, one cultures de cultivation (cover crop) at a time, which return nutrients to the soil, one flower, root, etc at a time.
Cultivate and experience the inherent abundance that grows from the earth: flowers, in turn fruit, in turn seeds, in turn pollinators and beneficial insects like butterflies and bees.”
Excerpt from Land Text: The Garden as Culture, an essay by the artist
Film photography depicting the first year (2021) by Mimi Guan & Beau Bree Rhee
