Created as part of the Darts Hill Garden Artist in Residence program, Strands of Life invited participants to explore the many threads that connect us with the living world.

Using wooden beads and natural materials—including twigs, seedpods, dried leaves, feathers, shells, and plant material gathered from Darts Hill garden waste—participants created individual strands representing the interconnection of life. Each person could also make a small stick figure to place themselves within the strand: not standing apart from nature, but woven into it.

The finished strands were gathered together into a large hanging mobile in the garden, forming something like a shifting veil of natural objects, stories, and relationships.

Perhaps, as we added our strands, we were also pulling back the veil of the idea that we are separate from nature at all. As each person added a strand, many different materials, stories, and ways of seeing became part of one shared piece. Maybe the deeper invitation was to remember that we are not standing outside the living world looking in. We are already woven into it.