What did he see then? What do I see now? What do I hear, feel, remember, and imagine?
I created Wayfinding: Imaging History with (Our)story as a socially engaged public art project that invited participants to experience the landscape of Olana not only through the eyes of 19th-century painter Frederic Church, but through their own embodied presence. By walking the same carriage roads Church designed visitors were invited to reflect: What did he see then? What do I see now? What do I hear, feel, remember, and imagine? What if his experience walking these paths in nature are not so different from ours?
This project asks every participant to become the artist—contributing their own story of place to a living map of sensory experiences. I invited walkers to pause during their walk and record a moment of felt presence in nature—digitally or on paper. These reflections were then gathered into a co-created, evolving archive mapping a history of belonging.
This project was made possible through funding from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Greene County Council on the Arts, with support from The Olana Partnership’s Education Department.
