Yet again, I am invited to join a team of people from an architecture bureau to build installations for a rather popular festival, known throughout the world. But I won’t focus on how cool the experience was, or the many skills I learned related to installation building and working collaboratively on a team. Rather, I would like to emphasize what and how I was building. As the photos below reflect, there is a uniquely raw, earthly connection tied to this experience. In part, this had to do with the fact that the festival’s focus was on the human’s relationship with the Earth and raw matter. Especially during and after the pandemic, this was something we had all been deprived of.

The uniqueness of this experience speaks to how many times the arts attempt to brand themselves as pioneers of sustainability, but I quote here Linda Weintraub, who speaks and writes on this idea of sustainable art, and poses the question: “Do you trust your art mediums? Would you eat them?”

Now, of course, I am in no way trying to advise anyone to eat dirt, but here I would like to emphasize my experience of making art in direct contact with the Earth— using the Earth but not exploiting it. How to plan and construct forms which respect the Earth. To show how nature, the environment, and our planet is culture. And, at the same time, to document the social aspect, how through these installations, these projects, these experiences, we also build community centered around the Earth.

We are all responsible for what we create and leave on this planet, and Signal Festival taught me of the artist’s role in social and ecological responsibility. So, I will sit in mud, splinter my fingers with broken sticks, or sleep in a haystack— if this is a part of my role as an artist and as human on this planet, then I accept.