A place taking shape
At Becoming BAES, a day of shared ideas, planning boards and walks through the future sanctuary.
A community planning its future
The Butterfly Movement brought its community to Mokelumne Hill to help shape the Butterfly Arts and Ecology Sanctuary. Becoming BAES was a chance for people to spend time on the land and contribute ideas for its future.
We photographed the gathering, from group portraits and conversations to the design boards participants created.
Keeping a record of the ideas
Around the tables, people wrote notes, arranged photographs and talked through what the sanctuary could become. We photographed the boards taking shape and the conversations that went into them.
A finished board holds the proposals. The pictures around it hold something else: someone listening closely, a shared idea being worked out, the attention people brought to imagining this place together.
See the land
The group also toured the land, pausing by the lake and gathering beneath the trees. We followed those walks and conversations, showing people getting to know the place they were helping plan.
Drone footage gives a wider view of the site. Alongside the photographs from the ground, it connects the ideas on the boards to the landscape itself.
