Our Work
The challenge
Our growing disconnection from the natural world is negatively impacting human and planetary well-being, diminishing our sense of purpose and belonging, and eroding our innate capacity to listen, learn, and cooperate.
At the same time, we’re also confronting a deepening crisis of human disconnection. Widespread isolation and loneliness and narratives of deep division are fracturing our relationships with one another. This breakdown is impacting our health, well-being, and our ability to work together across differences.
Our approach
We are taking an ecological root-cause approach to addressing the interdependent crises of nature and social disconnection. Why?
If we don’t feel connected to nature, like we are a part of it and belong to it, we won’t protect or care for it. Likewise, if we feel isolated or divided from one another, we can’t create safe, cooperative, and resilient communities together.
In times of distress and uncertainty, connecting with nature and one another grounds us in a shared reality, and helps us find our bearings. It can give us clarity, comfort, and a renewed sense of possibility. No screens, no social media, just real-time, in-person shared experiences outdoors.
Our programs
We’re designing, producing, and piloting in-person, place-based programs to help people reconnect with nature, themselves, and one another. Grounded in the proven mental and physical health benefits of time spent in nature, our programs are held in safe, accessible, natural settings.
At the heart of each program is story. Participants are invited to listen for the stories held and offered by a place and to share their own—memories, observations, questions, and reflections shaped by the landscape around them.
What emerges is woven into a tangible, place-rooted expression—an installation, audio piece, or other public artifact—that lives on in the community. These living story forms carry forward what was learned and felt, inviting others to pause, listen, and connect.
“If you’re in the same physical space as someone, it’s harder to deny each other’s reality. You can ground in something common and shared. It’s multi-sensory. We’re in our bodies. The outdoors invites us to smell, touch, and feel. We can bond over our shared experience of our physical reality or our shared sense of awe.”
Baratunde Thurston
writer, podcaster, public speaker, and host of America Outdoors