Decades later, I encountered a very similar energy in a very different place. A full moon, a king tide had washed over the landscape soaking into my boots. I was immersed in a sea of Phragmites australis at Barrington Beach, Rhode Island, known as the RISD farm. Here lay a complex ecosystem, characterised by shifts between beach, tidal marsh and forest edge, each a unique dancer interwoven in a choreography of tides, wind and sky. As space of seeming serenity and respite, it was also haunted by the ghosts of its past. A vast channel carved through these layers, meant to channel the tide from existing development, it also cut off critical tidal flow to the marsh. At the edge of the forest stood a graveyard of oak tree snags, the result of salt water intrusion and sea level rise. Between the forest edge and the marsh stood a ghostly palisade of Phragmites australis which rolled like the ocean tides in the wind. I remember my trepidation as I entered the ritual of the meander, a mental and spiritual exercise in which I venture into an unknown abyss of Phragmites Australis .
I could not see any direction. Ahead, dense culms of phragmite; behind, a remnant path tracked through the ghost forest. I pushed forward; culms crackled and snapped beneath my feet which were sinking deeper into the mud; salt water filled my boots. Surrounded with no idea how far I’d come or where I was going, in an exercise of faith my gaman propelled me on. From fear and uncertainty, to discomfort and courage, to stasis and even joy, my meander brought me through an emotional transformation, a state of inner peace. Glazed by the sun, I watched the phragmites sway back and forth. A dance of crackles and pops washed over me. I received their embrace. Every weekend, I returned to that landscape, drawn by something I couldn’t quite name. I came to sketch, write and absorb; to observe the changes, subtle and immense — something beyond myself. Through this repeated practice, the fields of phragmites began to shift in meaning. No longer relentless invaders, they revealed themselves as ghost forests, living remnants of landscapes marked by deep, often invisible wounds. Their golden culms swayed like dancers, echoing the scars of social and ecological pain, a narrative which extends beyond the farm.
all images this page: Corey Watanabe
28 on site review 47 :: standing still
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