I was one of a four-person team who developed the conceptual framework for this design-focused residency, solicited and peer reviewed applications for participation, selected a group of ten international residents, and guided the residency experience.

From our call for applicants:

We invite you to breach the boundary between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Let’s lead ourselves out of our human-centered worlds and into the forest—and then back again. 

Between ancient trees and on moss-covered surfaces, plaster walls and glass windows, we’ll set up camp. And in this forest, we’ll collaborate. In- and out-of-doors. Through and behind, above and below, with and without a trace. To be. Thoroughly. Wilder.

Forest and building, non-human and human, wilderness and civilization; these and other dualities will emerge as we shift between realms. 

Kitchen or fire pit, studio or bare ground—bewilderment, collaboration, and inquiry will continue. 

How tall is the tree if there is no ruler?

Does night erase space?

Is the sky a ceiling?

“If a straight line is the shortest distance between two fated and inevitable points, digressions will lengthen it; and if these digressions become so complex, so tangled and tortuous, so rapid as to hide their own tracks, who knows—perhaps death may not find us, perhaps time will lose its way, and perhaps we ourselves can remain concealed in our shifting hiding places.”
–Italo Calvino

Residents spent three days of tent camping at Bear Run Nature Reserve and three more days living and working at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and High Meadow educational facility. We sought to facilitate a scenario in which participants were forced outside of their usual studio environments—and then invited back in.

A forthcoming publication will highlight intellectual output from the residency, and an article about the program will be published by the Maine College of Art and Design in early 2023.