NETWORK

the NETWORK project addresses human survival and what we truly need– from sustainable living practices to communal engagement and empathy, as we recognize and build our resilience. Considering climate change, and other immediate crises, the project is inspired by systems of communication, resource-sharing and survival employed in tree communities, as a lens to consider human community building. How can we see and feel connectedness, to our own roots, families (blood or chosen) and communities? And how might working directly with tree communities help us see, feel and recognize our interdependence—with one another and responsibility toward all life? Trees and fungi have elaborate root systems under the earth, largely unseen by the naked eye. These same kind of root systems are required for the building of communities and societies. The unseen roots of communities are the energetic centers (social, cultural and artistic meeting sites) where people gather and bond through shared experience, empathy and exchange.  Recognizing the resources and survival strategies that we have (and don’t have) in our communities, we can begin to develop both practical and otherwise networks and shared resourcing within our communities.

Directed by Krista DeNio and co-created and performed by an all female team of performers, scientists, and designers, the NETWORK project creates performance experiences works together with the trees and land, utilizing dance, theater, and installation design, to create a multi-dimensional, embodied experiences, connecting audience participants with the site, themselves and one another. Together we create communal systems and strategies toward our own survival.

Working together with a team of artists, scientists, and land stewards we are devising research methods and a creative model based on horizontal exchange, trust-worthiness and healing our scarcity model thinking, in the effort toward a more sustainable and resilient way of living and exchanging. the NETWORK project has existed in many phases of research and development since 2017 and will continue developing models that can serve people and nature in both urban communities and nature sites.

“Interbeing” music video created by project collaborator, Esther Young with footage from the NETWORK project premiere at the Djerassi Program (more information found below)