Contribute | To The Archive

Thank you for your interest in participating in the Narrative Terrains : Color Stories of the Anthropocene Project! We truly appreciate your interest and are excited to hear your stories and archive and utilize your color submissions!

Below are instructions and guidelines for foraging and submitting your colors. Upon receipt of your submission – your samples will be archived (both in raw and processed form), lab tested (depending on locale of sample), and utilized in public art projects, installations and speaking engagements to further educate and inspire a new perspective of connecting with the land and the people of it.

The information packet and forms are available for download HERE to include with your sample submission.

I have also included the pages of the packet below for those who may not have access to a printer, so you have the instructions, guidelines, questions and explanation of why we are asking – what we are asking.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me at [email protected] with any questions.

More information on Ethical + Sustainable Color Foraging and Collection can be found HERE.

 

INSTRUCTIONS :

 

Thank you for participating in the Narrative Terrains : Color Stories of the Anthropocene Project. We truly appreciate your interest and are excited to hear your stories and archive and utilize your color submissions! Below are instructions and guidelines for foraging and submitting your colors. Upon receipt of your submission – your samples will be archived (both in raw and processed form), lab tested (depending on locale of sample), and utilized in public art projects, installations and speaking engagements to further educate and inspire a new perspective of connecting with the land and the people of it.

 

Foraging – please practice safe, ethical and sustainable harvesting of your chosen submission. Be aware of your local laws, posted property and protected land status. Narrative Terrains does not encourage or condone illegal activity while sourcing your pigment and takes no responsibility for legal action taken if persecuted. While this project encourages “action” as a means of resistance – please collect your samples at your own risk. More information on the safety and ethical considerations of pigment foraging/collection can be found on our website.

 

Collecting – materials that serve well as samples include rocks (typically sedimentary), minerals, soil, dried plant specimens (roots, leaves, nuts – please try to avoid seed pods so as to not accidentally disperse species that could invasive if released). Place in bag or container (natural cotton is preferred, but plastic is also ok especially if the sample particles are small). Label the bag with your name, place of collection and date of collection. Please fill out the accompanying forms to the extent you are comfortable, or include your own personally written story to include with your sample. We are not only interested in the color itself but also the personal story and connection with your land and the source of your chosen color, history and environmental conditions surrounding it.If shipping internationally, please list the items contained as Art Supplies as these are what they are, and will be their intended use.

 

Send your sample(s) and forms to :

Narrative Terrains

c/o Sarah Pezdek

PO BOX 93

Round Lake, NY 12151

 

Please be sure to include your contact information so I can be sure to stay in touch with you to let you know when your samples have arrived and been archived, share news with you and send you a small gift in exchange for your time, interest and participation in this project. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] with any questions, concerns, ideas or information. I thank you again for your interest and participation and look forward to connecting with you!By submitting your color sample and story you agree to allow Narrative Terrains to publish your story on our website, print and online publications and use it with our teaching materials. Full credit to the story contributor will be granted in all forms of use. If you would like a personal website or social media information listed, be sure to include it with your submission. Thank you!

 

SUBMISSION FORM :

 

QUESTIONNAIRE :

 

WHY WE ASK WHAT WE ASK :

Submission Form |

Narrative Terrains utilizes color as a catalyst to connect with the land, and explore the peoples and places effected by human interference in the Age of the Anthropocene. The questions contained on our submission form and questionnaire are listed to give us a better idea of your environment, your connection to it and the history of it. We are also very interested in learning more about Native Knowledges – as we believe these silenced voices offer valuable lessons and practices that should be given a respectful platform to be heard and shared so we can return to healing the lands we have come to destroy, that are inherently a part of us. Thank you for participating in this project – we truly hope that these collected contributions help create a new mindfulness and awareness of our environments, practices and methods of sustainable and regenerative adaptation, community building, land connections and shared knowledges.

* Please note, that information shared on these forms will be archived along with your pigment submission and used on our site and in exhibits, workshops and research submissions – full names and identifying personal information will not be made public.BY SUBMITTING YOUR SAMPLE YOU GIVE US PERMISSION TO USE THE SAMPLE AND YOUR PROVIDED INFORMATION AS STATED ABOVE

Name – We want to know who you are! Our community is important to us, and we would love to build and sustain a connection with you. However, if you do not feel comfortable sharing this information by all means, leave this field blank or offer some other identifying information for inclusion in our color archive. Your full name will NOT be made public.

Todays Date – Date that you are submitting the form, so we can keep track of submissions in our archive.

Race/Ethnicity/Cultural Affiliation – Marginalized and indigenous communities are often the most strongly effected by human interference on the land. We ask this question to better understand more about your culture and/or if you are part of these communities to better understand and document how you and your community are being effected by modern extractive practices. We wish to better appreciate your knowledge of the land that are important to you and your ancestral history and cultural identification and to do our best to offer a platform to learn more about these Native Knowledges. We hope to share them as a means of making them visible as viable alternatives to modern practices, re-connecting people to the land and making visible the Importance of these knowledges often rendered invisible.

Terrain – We ask this to better understand the environment that your collected/submitted sample comes from. We aim to collected samples from both untouched natural terrain as well as terrains effected by heavy Industrialization and commercial agricultural practices. As part of this project – samples will be tested for their chemical compositions and toxic chemicals that may have been absorbed into the strata to better help identify the effects of these toxins on the communities/land the sample was derived from. We hope making this information visible through our archive will help bring awareness to these issues.

Color Story – Here is where we hope that you share with us your connection to the pigment sample that you submitted. Narrative Terrains is simply not an archive of just color and color sources and means of creating art with these colors. The stories of people, land communities, and cultures are vitally important to our work, our desire to better understand – first hand, how we are being effected by the industrialization of lands, how communities, people and cultures connect with their lands, the history of either development or naturalization of these lands. We are all part of the strata and the strata is part of us – we are interconnected – and when one is wounded, so is the other and in turn when one flourishes so does the other. We wish to share your stories with others in the form of our website, speaking engagements, workshops and art/art installations. We hope that there shared knowledges, stories, hopes and concerns can be used in a way that better draws connections to the land and between each other to highlight how we all share these collective experiences, no matter how far the distance between us – that the effects of the Anthopocene are something we are all effected by and have the potential to collectively do something about.

Terrain History – Please share your personal account of noticed changes in your local environments throughout your lifespan there. Has industry moved in, has commercial agriculture taken the place of family farms, has indigenous land been taken from or intruded on for the sake of industrial production/transport, has natural land been sold off for commercial/residential development? This knowledge better helps us to understand how your land has, currently and will potentially be used.

Drawing/Photograph of Terrain : (optional) Please share a sketch or photograph of the environment that you gathered your sample from. As an artist, visual references are as important as written accounts as they offer a different means of connecting with place and people. Feel free to include multiple photos with your submission if you are able, as well as a photo of yourself in the environment- we would love to connect your words with a face 🙂

Classification – Please select if your sample is Biological (plant/animal) or Geological (rocks, minerals). We do not limit our archive to Geological samples, as color is derived from many different sources historically and carries with it different cultural, ritual/symbolic, artistic and medicinal uses with it. We hope our archive will be composed of a wide variety of pigment sources to tell a fuller story.

Identification – If you know the scientific information of your pigment sample please include that information here so we can easily identify its source and compounds.

Locality/Date of Collection – Please include the locality of where your sample was collected from. If possible, include relative GPS coordinates – (they do not need to be of the exact location if you are concerned about the location given its current use). This will help us map where submitted colors are coming from and will help to archive the place and time which are two important facets of this project.

Questionnaire |

1. We at Narrative Terrains are not and do not claim to be of native/indigenous heritage – or support the cultural appropriation of indigenous people. We share knowledge and material that has been willingly offered. We understand historically, gathered histories have been written accounts and research of white men, and often do not include the voices of those who identify with or are part of these cultures. We wish to share the authentic accounts, stories and practices. Through educational opportunities, cultural exchange events, and news stories from independent media source that have shown the disrespect and atrocities perpetuated against native cultures (on their own lands – both taken and reserved) – we have fostered a deep desire to learn more about their cultural history and practices, relationship to the earth, means of preservations of the land and the human rights violations against them  – both historically and presently. We believe these generative knowledges of indigenous groups contain hope for a means of returning to a connection with the land to better find mindful sustainable and regenerative ways of healing it. If you are of Indigenous decent – we truly appreciate you sharing your stories with us as we understand, to the best of our ability, why this may not come easily.

2. We wish to better understand the effects of industry and commercial agriculture on the land where you reside. How has the land been effected ?, What type of industry is there? What type of industrial practices are being used (mining/extraction, dumping etc.)? What are these extracted resource being used for? Has your drinking water and soil health been effected?

3. Similar to the above question, we want to know how industry and commercial agriculture have effected your community. Have you noticed mental/physical changes in the health and wellbeing of the residents in your community? Has there been job loss/growth in your community? How have marginalized citizens been effected? Has the standard of living on the whole been effected?

4. Have you personally or your community adopted any adaptation practices in response to the industry and environmental changes in your community? Have there been any community forums, action groups, protests organized in your community? Have there been policy and practice changes? Have there been grass roots organizations put in place to address environmental/health issues? What adaptation practices have been integrated to mitigate or reverse the environmental issues in your community? Have any of these helped ? Please share any methods put in place that have helped in remediating wounded land so we can keep track of and share these ideas with other communities facing similar issues.

5. How do you connect with your environment? Do you feel a spiritual connection with it, and if so, how so? Do you feel disconnected – and if so, what practices do you feel could help reconnected you and offer a different perspective. Do you wish to have a deeper connection and why? We wish to better understand how people(s) are connecting with their land and surroundings – we hope that stronger connection is a catalyst for action and change.

6. What is your personal perspective on environmental connection and practices of preservation? Do you feel that as a modern society we have disconnected ourselves from the land? Does this disconnection feed into the greed of consumerism and industry? How do you connect with the land? Is it through spiritual/ritual practice? Is it part of a daily routine? We would love to learn more about how your connect with the earth and your thoughts on how others can connect to strengthen communities and a deeper appreciation for the land we live on and take from.

7. How do you personally participate in actions of resistance and or/preservation with the environmental issues that surround you? Do you participate in action groups? Do you use art as a means of offering a new perspective on these issues? Do you belong to an environmental or social justice group? Share here means and methods of resistance or remediation so others can be inspired and take action in their own communities.

8. We want to know what you hope to see come from this project. As we are in constant evolution, your feedback, contributions, questions and engagement will help strengthen the importance of our work – as an individual and as a community project. Please let us know what you’d like to see here ! We also would love to keep you posted through our newsletter of upcoming events, color stories, artistic techniques and other shared knowledge pertaining to this project. If you would like to be a contriubuter to our blog, share a research paper, share foraging or artistic techniques, we would love to collaborate with you. Please be sure to include your contact information so we can stay in touch and let us know how you are interested in contributing. We hope that using color as a catalyst for connection and awareness spurs other projects, inspires creativity and change, offers a new perspective of and appreciation for the earth and it’s vibrant people and cultures, and artistically speaking serves as a means of adding a new intimate layer to the creative process.