A Path Forward

What is the role of art, joy, and play in a world facing climate extinction?

A Path Forward is an exploration of the relationship between joy, play, and day-to-day life alongside climate grief and anxiety.

At human scale, the piece is a playful, spacious maze of aluminum tubes, ladders, nets, and shadows, its heavy message obscured. The message hovers nonetheless, most visible from above.

The piece is designed to help myself and others express, confront, and process our shared climate grief and anxiety.

• Title

  A Path Forward

• Materials

  metal, rope, led rope

• Size

  50’ D x 58’ W x 8’ H

• Status

  proposal for Burning Man Honoraria, finalist, 2024

By confronting and acknowledging these fears, we gain space and perspective to put in the work to create a way forward, for a better shared future for the earth.

Close up view of A Path Forward

The interactive and climbable structure integrates poles, ladders, and monkey bars alongside handwoven playground netting affixed to the upper letters at different heights to create a spacious, maze-like installation and casting complex shadows. Visitors can lounge, spin, climb, swing, rest, and play on the structures. 

The text’s meaning is purposely distanced through size and orientation, but can be best discerned at human scale by following its path and can serve as a walking meditation for visitors to process their own climate grief and anxiety.

Bird’s eye view of A Path Forward during the daytime

Visitors are invited to ascend the block letters for a higher vantage point to view the piece and discover its meaning. There, handwoven nets invite visitors to lounge, gather, sit, contemplate,, cuddle, and rest. 

The piece encourages visitors to climb atop the stucture for a higher vantage point or to ascend nearby art pieces for a different vantage point. People who may have ridden by the structure earlier without a second thought are re-engaged by the message visible in a birds-eye-view from the top of another piece.