RITA LEDUC
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SITE: Extending Ecology / HBEF

Extending Ecology:

An Oika Project at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest

White Mountains, NH

[Exhibition at Museum of the White Mountains]

“Extending Ecology is an ongoing, experimental, Oika collaboration between an ecologist-turned-writer and social innovator (Rich Blundell), a visual artist (Rita Leduc) and selected natural habitats. The intention of an Oika collaboration is to explore pathways by which the healing, ecological dynamics of nature can extend into culture through art. The first instantiation of Extending Ecology features the US Forest Service’s Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF) in New Hampshire’s White Mountain Region.” — Blundell, 2021

As the project unfolds, artwork will accumulate in the gallery above. But because this project is ongoing, because it’s bigger than the visual works themselves, and because I believe in the benefits of a transparent process, this page also serves as an abbreviated living record of the collaboration thus far.

For those who would like to delve deeper into Extending Ecology: HBEF, current resources include:

Deepest extensions of gratitude go to Dr. Rich Blundell and Oika, Dr. Lindsey Rustad and colleagues at HBEF, and Broto: Art-Climate-Science for their participation in and support of Extending Ecology: HBEF.

PROJECT KICK-OFF TOUR @HBEF: September 18-19, 2021

Here we go! Rich and I met Lindsey Rustad, lead forest ecologist and human representative of HBEF, for a weekend tour of the forest. Lindsey provided a generous, riveting, and enthusiastic overview of the research happening at Hubbard Brook as we explored the 7,800 acre temperate woodland valley. Established in 1955 by the US Forest Service, Hubbard Brook is known internationally for its Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study, which has provided long term studies of air, water, soils, plants, and animals since 1963 (this study is famous for discovering and ameliorating acid rain). After a weekend taking it all in, let me tell you: this research is comprehensive and critical. But beyond learning about the science, we also spent time sharing ideas and learning about each other, which was just as enjoyable, thought-provoking, and salient.



RESIDENCY: September 25 - October 7, 2021

Five days later, Rich and I returned to HBEF to ensue 12-days of rigorous, immersive fieldwork where we exercised our individual practices as well as shared them with each other. Put simply, our overarching goal was to open ourselves to the forest and listen. This may sound unambitious, but we both know from experience that when one succeeds in this goal, a cascade of others follow. One of the beautiful things about this project - and a way in which both our practices align - is that intuition is our guide. This was reinforced formally when we were invited to be part of Broto’s Collaboration Blueprint trial which specifically strives to relieve the “Burden of Outcome” from a collaboration. There is something in this way of working that allows the experience to more readily thrive. I think it has to do with reliance on intuition necessitating presence. In that presence, one finds a trust and confidence that keeps the ground fertile.

I could write pages about these 12 days, but the time is perhaps best summarized in this snippet Rich and I wrote together:

“Because of the notable ways in which our practices merged and diverged during fieldwork, our bodies and minds were offered diverse access points for the lived experiences of place. Once we established rapport with the habitat, we discovered different modalities circulating through the shared ecosystem of materiality and consciousness. These experiences yielded profound new senses of interconnection and belonging. We left the forest both embodied and enacted. In other words, in addition to dissolving the mind/body dualism, we also perturbed the inner/outer divide of personal identity. The forest shifted into us and us, into the forest.”

This is no exaggeration or metaphor; this period of time filled me up with ideas, experiences, emotions, understanding, and yes, with the forest itself.

After my usual few days of absorbing the place - which this time was enriched by Rich’s expertise and concepts in Oika’s curriculum - I started making integrated photographs. For reasons I’ll explain in detail later, I chose to focus on the weirs and areas around the brook. Photos of some of these - and studio work - are below.

Special thanks to Joe Klementovich who documented the integrated photograph process on my very last day!

Art @HB: September 25 - October 7, 2021

For a more detailed account of these residency days, head to @ritaleduc.

COLLABORATION, SYNTHESIS + PRODUCTION

October 8, 2021 - January 9, 2022

Oooooof. Leaving Hubbard Brook was hard. It felt like I was abandoning a trust that the forest so innocently, so genuinely and selflessly gave to me. Driving away was heart-wrenching.

But - but - the trust is actually still there and not a thing is being abandoned. This brings the topic of the “physical world” to the fore. Recall what we wrote above: the place is in us now. And exactly what we are going to do with that is precisely the question of Extending Ecology.

So between October 8 and January 9, I spent time in my studio, working and playing, conversing with Rich, working and playing, listening to things and reading things and diving deep into Oika things and - yep - working and playing. I created about 20 collages with scraps from the on-site integrated photographs with the intention of turning a chosen few into paintings. From the HB studio, I also had my drawings of the brook and about 100 thumbnail studies of various ecological elements in the forest. So, much like the brook with its water, data, minerals, and detritus, I spent studio time with my images, feelings, conversations, memories, understandings, imaginings, and mysteries all rippling and ruffling around inside and outside my being, working on me.

But the question was: how to extend it? How to transfer the feeling of understanding and passion and energy and reciprocity and gratitude and trust and knowing and kinship? Not to mention the information; in this particular place, big things are happening! Scientists are looking at extreme weather conditions, collecting baseline data and searching for signals among the norm. The forest, too, is plugging away, growing, accumulating, giving. How do we use what we all have to give? How does Extending Ecology engage in a way that we can also plug away and prosper and give?

I wasn’t sure, but Rich and I had some ideas. The forest was still talking to us, and we never stopped listening.

Skip to the bottom for in-progress studio photos but first: a return trip to HBEF…!

RETURN TO HBEF: January 10-17, 2022

Rich and I always knew we had to revisit Hubbard Brook in the winter, but for good measure, we made a long list of intentions for the trip. Despite this list, I did not know what I would find upon arrival. Of all the locations I’ve collaborated with, I’ve never returned to a site mid-project. Would it be the place I remembered? How much had my memory morphed it in transport through space and time? Would new conversations necessitate that I change course in the studio? Would the fact of Time just take over the conversation, rendering all else moot?

Rich and I like to talk about surprise. Sometimes, surprises mean you’re not paying attention, but other times, the ability to be surprised means you’ve let go of the reigns just enough to acknowledge that you weren’t driving to begin with. That’s the best kind of surprise and it’s what I found when I returned to Hubbard Brook.

The rhythm of the winter was definitely different. In general, Rich and I would work separately in the morning and then join up in the afternoon for a hike up Hubbard Brook Road and a sled / snowboard down. We’d end our day at the brook and discuss. Our heads were further along in the project, so our focus was different than in the Fall, but the forest was further along too and still palpably guiding us. Topics the forest presented included:

  • The misconception of stillness in the iced-over brook and moments where the water’s relentless current broke through

  • The initial feeling of un-belonging in the winter landscape that was quickly overwritten with overwhelming familiarity

  • Concepts of transparency (snow, ice, trees, dreams)

  • Attention to the “quieter” colors and lines of the forest that are drowned out in the more ostentatious warmer months

  • Timescales: of ice (slow to build, quick to break), rocks, snow, ideas

  • The winter forest’s mind-boggling simultaneity of silence and cacophony

  • The feeling of recognizing and being recognized: sharing in something bigger than ourselves

Let me see if I can sum this up. Physically returning to the forest was profound; I felt it in every cell in my body and it felt *good.* But the force field of the project? With our departure in the Fall came the stretching of those bounds. So while returning to Hubbard Brook was a grand reunion, it surprised me because it brought me no surprises other than this one: it picked us up right where it…never left us to begin with.

This information confirmed that this project does, indeed, have the capacity to extend to others what the forest has extended into us. And so we departed, filled up yet again with the aforementioned feelings of understanding, passion, gratitude, reciprocity, etc. - and a plan (at once strategic and intuitive) for how to transfer it onward. 

Art Progress @ Home Studio: October 2021 - July 2022

I hesitate to write much about what’s happening in the studio. For one, the visual work is only part of the Extending Ecology package; Rich and I are creating several more entry points that will both mine and expand the conversation (stay tuned for those). For another, my hope is that this artwork will stir in viewers a sensory response that I’d like to respect as theirs; I don’t want to narrate it for them.

That said, I’ll offer two things. First, I’ll provide a little context on how the work came to be and second, at the very bottom, I’ll share some words that I brought back with me from Hubbard Brook and which have been bouncing around in my head along with everything else.

Okay so, remember: Hubbard Brook is *big* - 7,800 acres – so when I arrived in the Fall of 2021, trying to figure out what I would focus on during my time there was a little intimidating. But the weirs were clearly hubs of data that provide much of the information that the forest is known for. On top of that, their geometry, color, and textures were pretty irresistible. So it didn’t take long for me to decide that making work at the weirs had to happen.

Working with the weirs filled me with reverence for the dedication, attention, and determination of the scientists. The work I made with the weirs interestingly mirrored much of the focus and precision that scientists must demonstrate while extracting data. This fascinated me conceptually but also practically: it made for pretty intense artmaking sessions. So, presumably as an unconscious way to balance this, I found myself equally drawn to the brook.

At the brook, I felt passion. The forest just came alive with color and sound and texture and fungi and movement. The brook was essentially a party where all of the water – and thus, the data - that was happening upstream came to hang out together. Because of all of this, being at the brook felt sacred.

So that was that: I decided to make nine pieces at the weirs (not one at each of the nine, but nine total as a nod to the fact that there are nine weirs) and nine pieces along the brook. What ended up happening visually was a striking contrast between the two. The work from the weirs was angular, dark, static, precise, and compositionally closed. The work from the brook was celebratory, charismatic, chaotic, colorful, and compositionally open. Despite these qualitative differences, I noticed that the quantity of energy exchange at each place was the same: no matter the location, I was given a lot and I gave a lot in return. This felt noteworthy.

Per my usual process, these on-site pieces were collected and cut up as scraps to be reused to make collages in my home studio. Much like the on-site work, the collages are improvisational and playful, but I approached them this time with two hunches and two questions. The hunches: 1) That which I found at the weirs and that which I found by the brook exist together in a reciprocal relationship, and 2) This reciprocal relationship makes up the essence of Hubbard Brook. The questions: 1) What does an abstract representation of this reciprocal relationship between the brook and weirs look like? And 2) What is this representation saying about, well, everything?

In the best way, the collages I made - as well as works on paper, paintings, and gifs - ended up addressing these hunches and questions by engaging me – and hopefully eventually, the viewer – in an open, spirited dialogue.

And with that, I’ll leave you with the below experimental transcription, which is an attempt to mimic how these words have been echoing in my head ever since departing Hubbard Brook on October 7:

 

Baseline, extreme,

Tipping point, resilience,

Simple

Elegant

Powerful.

 

Giant in the forest, slowly collecting things:

Passion, trust, tipping point.

 

Constraints and opportunities

Chaos and control

Static and signal

Competition and communion

 

How does it hold it all?

How do we hold it all?

 

Disruption of consciousness;

The life cycle of a mushroom.

 

Baseline, extreme

Tipping point

Passion, trust

Tipping point

Precipice,

Surprise,

Tipping point

 

Truth

Wisdom


Tipping point

 

September 2022 - Present

Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest belongs to the Long Term Ecological Research Network. In this spirit, Extending Ecology is an ongoing research project at Hubbard Brook. Year 1 wrapped in August of 2022 with a “baseline check:” Rich and I visited our most salient sites to note the cycles, shifts, and evolution of our relationships. Additionally, we had our annual “baseline check” meeting with Lindsey. And even though I should know better by now, I’m surprised every time at the vitality of the verbal and non-verbal conversations that happen in and around this wondrous place. As reflected in the forest itself, there is so much growth, outward extension and potential! It’s endlessly gratifying to witness the inexhaustible potential of deep listening, authentic participation, and maintenance of - literally and figuratively - that position of delicate balance when you are walking mid-brook atop the rocks, simultaneously planting and lifting your foot toward the next stone.

Since “extensions” are moving increasingly outward into the public realm, I’m not going to post a blurb on this page for every visit back to dear HB. Instead, I encourage anyone who would like to track project progress to visit @ritaleduc and/or check out our real-time-behind-the-scenes Trello Board. And of course, always feel welcome to reach out!


Next: Nantucket / MA