Spherical thinking in MMXXIII
Spherical's 2023 Perihelion update
Perihelion is an invisible phenomenon, a moment yesterday when Earth and its star swept closest to one another (91,399,454 miles) before orbiting out again for another year.
Out here on the Pacific Coast it comes with the season of big water. Atmospheric rivers pack the mountains in snow. King tides flood inland. Seeds punch out radiant green. Hillsides and bootsoles are thick with mud. Glory and danger, feast and famine, these flows surround us and infuse our work.
We come into being through others.
In past years we wrote as a duo, a small studio of two. We’re now a team of ten. Half are based down the coast, in the LA basin, at the nexus of our current work on living infrastructure.
To assume this new shape, we’ve had to grow from the inside: build out our studio, expand our research roots, experience ourselves as a collective. Entangling and diffracting with this new ensemble, we begin to experience what the studio is becoming.
As ever, we ask: Which worlds are we inhabiting? Which are we destroying? How are we reworlding, together?
We’ve been drawn to the stories of lands, waters, and their relations. Land guardians in the Yukon, community leaders in South LA, and permaculturists in Petaluma have graciously welcomed us and shared their practices of local tending. We’re now working on new tools to share these remarkable stories of commitment to healing places, even in this time of extremes. We continue to draw inspiration from the 370+ similar stories we’ve mapped.
Two mentors, each in their 89th orbit, passed into the bardo a week apart: we remember Newton Harrison and Ken Ruta, giants of their arts.
For those of you we’ve seen, we’re grateful for the time with you. For those of you we haven’t, you’re in our thoughts.
We wish you and your people sustained health, improvised joy, clean water and good food.
To our reconnections
Dawn Danby + David McConville