Public Art: River Cane Wetland Park

About the Artist

Photo of artist standing in a field of flowers

Austen Camille (Canadian-American) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, builder and gardener. Camille primarily makes site-responsive public work that aims to both build relationships with the local environment, as well as call attention to relationships that already exist within that environment. Camille received their MFA in Painting from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in 2020, and currently resides between Chestertown, MD and Alvin, TX.

Camille’s practice incorporates painting, sculpture, writing, research, sound recording, performance, construction, augmented reality and localized material; the medium is always determined by the place and the project. Camille's work has been commissioned and exhibited in a diverse range of landscapes, from northern Wyoming rivers to the high desert of eastern Oregon, from rolling farmland in southern Wisconsin to estuary marshes along the Hudson River. The work is always intended as an extension, rather than an intervention. Alongside and integrated with their studio practice, Camille works to forge connections between the arts and other disciplines.

Project Details

The words "habitat" and "home" share origins in meaning, referring to a place of dwelling or settling. As humans, we often distinguish between the two, defining a habitat as a place belonging to non-humans and a home as a place belonging to humans. This project, A Habitat / A Home by artist Austen Camille, asks viewers to consider River Cane Wetland Park as a shared environment.

Each artwork will look at the park through the imagined perspective of a different native more-than-human species. As viewers wander through the park, they will be able to experience the landscape as imagined through the senses of insects, plants, amphibians, birds, beavers, and rocks. What does home feel like for each of these bodies? The work will be created in collaboration with local naturalists, scientists and knowledge-keepers in order to present facts as woven together with imagination. Through a series of workshops, the community will be invited to contribute their ideas about what home means to them. Their words will be incorporated throughout the artworks, holding the human and more-than-human perspectives as equal within this mutual habitat.

Camille grew up moving constantly and has continued to shift locations as a site-responsive artist. Each place they work is someone else’s home. As a person who has never understood home to mean a singular place with walls and windows, Camille is curious to explore the possibilities of how other species might define the place that we have called a habitat.

As part of the project, Austen will work with community stakeholders to define community and aesthetic goals for the artwork. They will also collaborate with the planning and design teams to integrate artwork into the landscape, hardscape, and possible built elements.

The public art project will also include an emerging local artist, as part of the community-centric design development process, and provide mentorship for the local artist to create artwork for the community engagement process or for the park.

More information available here: River Cane Wetland Park