Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast. I'm Emanuel Vaughn Lee, host of this show, an executive editor of Emergence Magazine,

located on the unseated ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok people in present-day Marin County.

Each week, we feature interviews, stories, poetry, and author-narrated essays, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

This week, online, we're featuring Breathing with the Forest, an online adaptation of marshmallow laser feasts large-scale audio and video installation

that premiered at our 2023 London exhibition, shifting landscapes.

The experience invites you into a sense of deep continuity with the Colombian Amazon rainforest,

and the hidden connections we share with the Kappanuri tree and the biosphere that surrounds it.

As a companion to this, we're also re-sharing a conversation from the exhibition

I had with Marshmilla Laser Feast Director Erson and Erson,

about the importance of imagination in making visible the often invisible threads that bind us together with the living world.

Erson talks about the art collective's work in creating spaces where people can step into deliberate acts of connection with the more than human

that can be celebratory but also offering a reminder of what is at risk in the midst of our ecological crisis.

At the core of much of marshmallow laser feast's work is the question of how can we allow

ourselves to embody other beings, other species, by playing with the plasticity of our perception.

We also spoke about the power of experiential art to broaden our

empathy for what lies beyond the borders of the human, inviting us to open to an

experience of what it's like to be part of the forest.

Nice to see everyone here.

My name is Emanuel Vaughn Lee.

I am the executive editor of Emergence Magazine and the curator of this show.

And I'm delighted this morning to be joined by creative director of Marshmoe Laser Feast,

Erson Henn-Earson, who is going to be joining us in conversation this morning.

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