FACING NATURE (2025)
MEDIUM:
Movement, Photography, Acts of Care
DIMENSIONS:
Digital Print on Coroflot (Yard Sign) 12 x 18 inches
This exhibition of nature portraits developed from a series of photokinetic stewardship workshops. Movement, photography, and acts of care were used to create intergenerational kinship through a collaboration with Weinberg Senior Center and Seward Park Conservancy’s indigenous pollinator meadow. Participants explored digital and alternative photographic processes while engaging in environmental stewardship, transforming how we perceive and connect with place. Each portrait reflects the powerful intersection of creative expression and environmental care, cultivating kinship between people and the more-than-human world that sustains urban community life.
COMMISIONED BY:
Made possible in part with funds from Creative Learning, a regrant program supported by DCLA and NYSCA. administered by LMCC.
SPECIAL THANKS:
Seward Park Conservancy, NYC Parks, US Forrest Service, Weinberg Senior Center at Manny Cantor, Educational Alliance,
Magda Kaczmarska, Matthew Lopez-Jensen
RELATED PUBLICATIONS:
Care as Kindship, The Nature of Cities, July 16, 2025|PDF
Photo & Gardening Workshops
Photokinetic Stewardship workshops use movement, photography, and acts of care to create intergenerational kinship through a collaboration between Weinberg Senior Center and Seward Park Conservancy’s indigenous pollinator meadow. This series introduces seniors to photography as a creative expression and nature documentation, fostering deeper connections with local ecosystems. Participants (many newcomers to photography) explore digital and alternative processes while engaging in environmental stewardship and fostering a deeper connection to the nature of Seward Park, which many already consider a second home.
Each workshop begins with embodied introductions—sharing names alongside movements inspired by the meadow, observations of seasonal changes, or memories triggered by place. The activities span movement composition and botanical collection, lighting techniques for nature portraits, cyanotype printing, and nature face collages using garden materials. Through hands-on learning, participants document the Seward Park Conservancy’s mission while strengthening community bonds. Sessions conclude with reflections on how photographic skills transform perception and deepen place-based connection.
Compositions from Photokinetic Stewardship Workshop 1: Moving, Collecting, Composing
Let’s take a moment and silently observe your surroundings and then make a movement inspired by the nature in this place.
Nature faces from Photokinetic Stewardship Workshop 2: Exploring Light Sources and Personal Connections in Photography
Are there any changes in nature that you often notice (blooming of a particular plant, leaf out, leaf drop, rainy seasons, shorter winters etc.)? Do you notice any of these changing and how?
Cyanotypes from Photokinetic Stewardship Workshop 3: Sun print exposure and the shifting concept of time in nature
Our perception of time is constantly shifting. Can you share an example of when time felt like it moved very slow or very fast? Has a scent or an image ever triggered a core memory for you?
Collage portraits from Photokinetic Stewardship Workshop 4: Facing Nature using photo collage
Share an example of a person in your life that is meaningful to you (this could include ancestors, relatives, friends). Is there a special place you go to to connect to the memory of these people?
Scenes from the Garden Party where we invited participants to share a moment of awe and connect through movement-haikus inspired by the meadow, followed by an awe walk through the landscape. At the walk’s conclusion, each person collected a cyanotype ribbon and reflected on how moving around the garden and observing the images deepened their connection to this place. Reflections were shared aloud as ribbons were ceremonially attached to the meadow fence.