Ecosystems

Swale is a floating food forest, a living platform for reimagining public food and ecological stewardship in New York City. Stepping onboard, there’s an immediate shift in perspective. The plant communities and soil underfoot feel like a small, self-sustaining island. But after a while, it’s not Swale that seems to be moving—it’s the city, skyscrapers swaying in the water’s rhythm. What initially felt ephemeral begins to feel stable, revealing how fluid our relationship to land and place can be.

As I worked on Limnal Lacrimosa, which means Of Lakes, Tears, I was thinking about Swale. Limnal Lacrimosa was installed in Montana. Visiting the building where the piece would be sited, I kept returning to Kobo Abe’s novel The Woman in the Dunes, in which two people must endlessly shovel sand to keep from being buried alive. It’s a story about endurance, inevitability, and environmental change. Limnal Lacrimosa moves through similar cycles—melting snowpack drips into vessels, overflows, and spills onto the floor, mirroring the steady, quiet erosion of glaciers. The piece keeps glacial time, a reminder of the slow but profound transformations shaping our world.

I’m deeply grateful for the people I’ve met and worked with in Montana and NYC—artists, activists, and organizers who are fighting for climate justice not just for humans but for the broader ecological communities we are part of. There’s so much work to be done, and these collaborations continue to inspire and push me forward.

This summer, we’re beginning to redesign Swale at Governors Island with a focus on saline farming—an experiment in resilience, adaptation, and regenerative food systems. I hope you’ll join us.