Preserve/Conserve.
Mohonk Preserve, Shawangunk Ridge, Ulster County, NY
Performance by Dillon Paul
Photo Direction/ Documentation by Lindsey Wolkowicz
Preserve/Conserve is a result of Movement + Stillness; the ongoing research of Lindsey Wolkowicz and her partner/ collaborator Dillon Paul.
Preserve/Conserve is a movement-based exploration of protected forrest land near the newly found home of the artist and her partner/collaborator. The desire to to touch, to connect, to make one’s own self like a tree, like the rock face that press against it, like the lichen that makes its bed on the sedimentary rock that stacks up on the forrest floor. Struggling against your own limitations, grappling to balance yourself within this space to which you are both drawn and a stranger - you long to feel connected, integral to this place, and realize that you are small and unnecessary within this interdependent system you admire.
You reflect on Joni Mitchell and her song Woodstock, written in longing for a similar feeling 50 miles and 60 years from where you are standing now - “….Then can I walk beside you? / I have come here to lose the smog / And I feel to be a cog / In something turning/ Well, maybe it is just the time of year / Or maybe it's the time of man / I don't know who I am / But you know life is for learning…” The stone presses into your flesh and leaves an impression on your palms. Your hands and feet are marked by the green of the lichen and the black sap of the trees. Your lungs and heart and eyes are full and tired as you bring the residue of the day and the forrest floor back with you to your new home. You are humbled by the day and say, with gratitude, to yourself “I live here now.”
