Looking to the Future: Mildred's Lane in Frieze
Envisioning a self-regenerating art complex
A message from J. Morgan Puett:
As you all know, Mildred’s Lane has been navigating challenges to its sustainability over the last several years. To ensure our collective legacy, we are all looking to the future and the changes required to grow.
I want to announce out loud that I am stepping aside from my role as Ambassador of Entanglement. It is time. I put aside so many personal projects and interests for over a decade to act out increasingly demanding executive and administrative roles—in other words, being the director of Mildred’s Lane. It is far more than one person can mentally and physically do, yet all have been labors of love for art, friends, landscape—LIFE!
I have been living in this expanded garment of a landscape for so long, raising a child, witnessing friends and colleagues come and go—expressing themselves, taking and making a small bit of its history—I feel it deeply, intimately. But now I see that it needs some mending, which requires thought, care, and calm retrospect. The next phase for me is emerging—a new, more focused role—a Land Stewardship to Mildred’s Lane.
Land Stewarding is a way to pattern and tailor the landscape, establishing a stronger ecological program. Meanwhile, I will clear the path for a new executive generation for Mildred’s Lane. I would like to introduce those brave souls who are helping me in this transition from Ambassador of Entanglement, until we establish a rotating directorial position.
Alex A. Jones (she/her) is now acting as Minister of Strategic Possibilities(one of seventeen Labors of Mildred’s Lane, this one initiated by Abby Lutz, whose ongoing collaborations with me include A Guide to the Field Project). Alex is helping to manifest and co-curate new conceptual potentialities for this mutable subject of Mildred’s Lane.
Nick Bennett (he/him) is now Ambassador of Transhistorical Agency (another one of the Labors; Natalie Wilkin carved out this labor in all aspects of life here during her residency from 2011–2014). Nick’s labor of communication and administration is the core of the greater project. He will be critically negotiating entanglements forward.
Alex and Nick can be reached at workstyles@mildredslane.com.
Now, to the future: 2023 brings new turns for Mildred’s Lane and the Mildred Complex(ity). The future of our lives and work depends on healthy ecology; hence, we put environmental conservation at the forefront of our artistic agenda. Mildred’s Lane is becoming a conservation land trust, shifting our attention to an innovative experiment in creative ecologies, including all creative non-human life.
I am excited to share a new piece published in the March 2023 issue of Frieze, which speaks to the heart of this vision, framing Mildred’s Lane in terms of sustainability and regeneration.
Yours, in complexity.
J. Morgan Puett
Land Steward-in-Residence 2023
Mildred’s Lane is a Self Regenerating Art Complex
The constantly evolving event site uses perpetual adaptation and new notion of creative practice to face the challenges to sustainability
By J. Morgan Puett, written in collaboration with Alex A. Jones and Alastair Gordon
An excerpt from the article:
“We are all entangled beings here, experimenting with ideas and with one another – sometimes uncomfortably, but more often in wonderment – from the skilled artists who construct vernacular dwellings to the cultivated mildew that later blooms across their canvas walls. Raccoons scamper in the eaves of the Barn Lyceum (1997–ongoing) during evening lectures, making their nests as we exchange conversation. In early summer, seasonal colonies of bat pups learning to fly fall from the cracks of 200-year-old outbuildings. Hickory nuts drop and bang sharply upon the roof of the Lunar Camp (2015–ongoing) in autumn, startling the sleepers. Each year, the smallmouth bass in the Algorithmic Pond Project (2006–ongoing) grow larger. Some visitors swear that Mildred Steffens, the property’s previous owner who died here in 1986, still inhabits the old homestead, which has been rechristened The Mildred/Lillie Archaeology Project (1997–ongoing). If there are spirits afoot, they are as likely those of the Lenape people from whom this land was once stolen.”
Support Mildred's Lane!
The costs are never-for-profit. You can make a donation through one of the following options. Every cent goes directly to supporting our most immediate needs towards establishing a land trust and becoming an official 501c3 organization that will allow Mildred’s Lane to thrive for generations to come.
Our Fiscal Sponsor (Creative Visions)
Thank you to The Silbert Foundation / The Goldman Foundation / and all supportive individuals who prefer not to be mentioned.