“Inspired by the land and the history that the park commemorates and interprets, this project invites communities across America to respond, with one word, to an online prompt, “What change would you like to witness today as inspired by or in response to the events that took place on this historical landscape?” ” (quoted from release on Minute Man National Historical Park)

Ways to Witness Earth Press Project: WITNESS in the next few weeks:

By November 1, go to Minute Man Visitor Center at 250 N Great Road, Lincoln, MA. Walk around the piles of imprinted clay bricks spreading from beneath the wooden frame. Inhale the earthy air; take in the impressed words and rough-edged rectangles. Wonder about ways all the single words relate to each other. Consider the significance of their being pressed into the clay.

Go to Nancy Winship Milliken Studio website, Earth Press Project: Witness Read the description, view the photos, watch and listen to the video about the processes and developments.

Go to the National Park Service website, Earth Press Project: WITNESS  Read the related history, view photos of the structure, see how you can add words.

Information and invitations to add words to the project

Container for cards with words for WITNESS inside the Visitor Center

Container for cards with words for WITNESS inside the Visitor Center

Booklet about the project and questionnaire on table inside the Visitor Center

Go to Umbrella website, Arts and Environment, EARTH  PRESS PROJECT: WITNESS Note related exhibits, projects, discussions, word collections and other ways to participate in person or online.

Any or all of the above will give you a sense of the complicated steps, interactions, and connections within a seemingly simple structure. Think about the word you might add or repeat, or not. I’m still thinking.

“We immersed ourselves in the textures, sounds and colors of precious, million year old clay, sticking to our skin and clothes. It was a physical and basic experience, one we remembered from childhood playing in mud. Then the words started coming in from the public: ACCEPTANCE, PATIENCE, HUMILITY, JUSTICE. The words were as soothing and physical as the muddy earth that we stomped beneath our feet to make the matrix for the adobe blocks. We felt the words, read them out loud. They became both personal and universal at the same time. We imbedded them in the foundational material.”— Nancy Winship Milliken (quote from Nancy Winship Milliken Studio website)