We don’t live in a wilderness invites twenty participants to become ecological fieldworkers in ‘wasteland’ landscapes. For centuries, ecological sites such as wetlands, fields, riverbanks and parks have been repeatedly transformed in search of extracting value from the ‘wastes’ of nature. The participants are here to decide what happens next. 

Led by an expert fieldwork guide, participants work in groups and follow a guided fieldwork score given by the Specific Sensing System - a handheld custom-built interactive device equipped with ecological sensors, light and sound. Using the device, alongside their own bodies and senses, participants investigate traces of human activity and ecological presence embedded in the site. As the score unfolds, they gather material and data to create a group proposal for the future of the site.  The question of whether these landscapes need to be transformed again and what role we as humans play in the cycle of waste to value is central to the performance. Participants must negotiate these questions as the field guide slowly becomes another mechanism in this system. 

The performance explores what happens when people are given the opportunity to make decisions about landscapes that are normally managed by governments and developers. In temporarily giving participants this responsibility, the work asks whether a different relationship with land can be imagined and facilitated.