Part of “The Resilient Journeys Project”

Conceived and Created by Jeanine Esposito, 

“The Resilient Ones” and the general public

Installation, mixed media
Variable dimensions
2015

Description:  “The Resilient Journeys Project” is an outgrowth of a Beechwood Arts & Innovation Arts Immersion Salons called “Resilience!”. The Salon was an interpretation and celebration of the resilience of the human spirit and the transformational power of the arts throughout the journey.

Beechwood invited a group of musicians, artists, sculptors, filmmakers & healers, each who faced life-altering events, to come together to share their stories, collaborate creatively across all arts and explore what it means to be resilient. Presented on May 31, 2015 live at Beechwood Arts in Westport, CT and streamed simultaneously to Satellite Salons in California, Texas, New Jersey & France, the impact of the salon was profound – for both the participants and the audience alike.

Included in this immersive and inspiring event, along with an original film, artwork and performances, was “Touched By Words” a collaborative, interactive piece conceived by Jeanine Esposito and built by artists who had been through resilient journeys.

The piece is made up of over 500 strips of weatherproof paper. On each strip, an inspiration or reflection from the arc of a resilient journey was written by an individual and hung on the branches of a 300 yr old Copper Beech tree.

This piece can be created by any community – in a school, library or non-profit that serves communities that need to be resilient.  We can provide the materials for writing the strips and they can be installed anywhere on site. In this way, the installation can be added to for months (even years!) to come.  The original installation at Beechwood was intended to stay up for 6 months, but 2 years later it is still up and still being added to by the public! 

Installations will be done in partnership with Beechwood Arts & Innovation, a 501(c)3

It is estimated that much of the world’s discarded plastic may last as long as 1,000 years. If that is true, then the plastic shapes of our everyday objects today may create future fossils from which scientists will try to determine more about our culture and how we lived. What will it say about us, these hundreds of imprints of sometimes obvious and sometimes perplexing items?  When I started this work, I was truly shocked at how quickly I accumulated these clamshell packages that surround many objects we purchase, leaving behind a ghostly outline of the object that will go into landfill and perhaps one day end up in the hands of someone 1,000 years from now.  

As a collaborative community project, people can continue to add clear vacuum packaging to the fossil wall. It provides an opportunity for community conversations around waste, recycling, how the future will see our time, etc.  The work can be done in workshops and/or by passersby that spontaneously show up. We can also arrange the piece in a spiral so it can be walked into as it gets bigger.

Clear plastic packaging from purchases, cable ties

Currently 108”W x 84”H x 35”D

Future dimensions tbd