A Nest for Nature
2023
Participatory Land Art | Inspire North Art Festival | Orchard Pavilion, Downsview Park
Commissioned by the North York Arts
A Nest for Nature is a participatory land art installation that emerges from the poetics of care, fragility, and ecological responsibility. Created during the Inspire North Art Festival at Downsview Park, this work involved the gradual gathering of dried sticks from the landscape—organic remnants of time and decay—some of which were gently colored using non-toxic pigments in the studio. These branches, shaped by the natural rhythms of the forest, were later assembled into a nest encircling a living tree, with the active involvement of the public.
The nest serves as a layered metaphor: it invokes the archetype of shelter, the origins of life, and the collective instinct to protect what is vulnerable. It is a symbol rooted in both natural order and cultural memory—echoing mythologies in which the tree stands as the axis of life, and the nest as its intimate sanctuary. The colored ring surrounding the nest introduces a subtle tension: it gestures toward the encroachment of industrial systems, the synthetic pressures that threaten the sanctity of the natural world.
This work resists the aesthetics of immediacy. Instead, it embraces slowness, echoing the principles of restoration ecology, where healing is not imposed but nurtured over time through sustained and respectful interaction. The act of building the nest becomes a ritual of attention—transforming the audience from spectators into co-authors of meaning and care.
