100′ Circles

The 100-foot (33-meter) Circles series is an attempt to address the changes/transitions/cycles (historic, social, natural, environmental) of specific land masses around the world. The series initially began with a Lew Welch poem I reignited as my departure point. It reads: “Step out of the planet. Draw a circle a hundred feet round. Inside the circle are 300 things nobody understands and maybe nobody’s ever really seen. How many can you find?”

According to Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One-Straw Revolution, our separation from nature is the origin of the current environmental crisis. The role of a farmer, in Fukuoka’s mind, is an observer, not an intervener, of the natural order in their particular landscape. Fukuoka points out that specific environmental problems are part of the larger problem of a disjointed relationship between human and nature and by only addressing a specific issue, the problem itself remains unsolved until “the consciousness of everyone is fundamentally transformed”.I began this site-specific series in 2019 as a way to heal our relationship with habitat — I plan to create performances emerging from collaboration and relational observation within these ecologies. Each circle becomes a living site, a space for collective storytelling between human and more-than-human participants. What has been left out from their stories, and how might we become better transporters of their knowledge? Can a habitat describe its own origin story — or the sound of its loss? Within these living archives, we also find the story of displacement and converted landscapes. At the edges of a circle, ecosystems meet and biodiversity thrives. These transitional zones cultivate dynamic, resource-rich systems. Together, they offer a blueprint for a community grounded in interconnection, adaptation, and abundance. Or does the circle represent a utopic world, staged and fenced off, promoting the language of land-return and restoration while excluding feral improvisors?