Our story

Illustration of a mobile camper with people inside
We Are A Collective Of
Storytellers, Artists, Ecologists, Educators

 

Climate Chaser

Who is Backyard Phenology?

We are a shifting assemblage of people who want to know the places we call home, notice these places changing over time, and through our noticing, find ourselves changing. We get the conversation started and we listen.

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The project emerges

Backyard Phenology emerged when scientists, artists, and educators shared stories about the natural world and became curious about place and seasonal change. Out of these conversations, a collective formed. Scientists shared with artists how connecting people to seasonal change and place has been meaningful as well as scientifically useful. Likewise, artists shared with scientists how connecting people to place and seasonal change is a creative act that builds community.

Connecting, sharing, and building are at our root. Connecting, sharing and building are how we grow new shoots out in our community.

Responding to a need

From its inception, the team saw a need: People need a space in which to share stories about their relationships to place. In response, Backyard Phenology created the Climate Chaser, a mobile camper you can step inside, take a seat at the table, and visit. Inside the camper, visitors and hosts share stories about place, change, cycles, and more.

 

 

Backyard Phenology listens and creates

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What are we listening to?

We listen to conversations about the environments in which we live, how these places are changing, and how important it is to understand place in order to take care of one another. We listen to place, as it speaks through the stories we tell, the stories you tell, the stories unfolding around us every day.

What are we creating?

We create objects, writings, experiences, and invitations to spark conversations and center listening. Sometimes, the conversations are among “ourselves,” co-founders and collaborators. And other times, the conversations are among “ourselves,” meaning you, a co-inhabitant in our home. A neighbor. A co-conversant. We create conditions to foster a multilogue about backyard phenology.

 

Hand-penned and hand-colored invitation reads "You're Invited" embellished with flowing stems, leaves, and seeds

You are invited to Backyard Phenology.

We hope you’ll say yes, but we understand that first, you’ll ask, what is phenology? And which backyards are being discussed?

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What is phenology?

Phenology is the study of cyclical and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate, and plant and animal life.

It's an "ology" that is more than a science, a subject of study and area of knowledge. It is a way of noticing, a connection to place, a way to get in touch with climate grief, and a way to care for the environment we call home.

Phenology can also be direct and everyday, bringing us into our senses and into relationship with others.

Which backyards are being discussed?

Backyards everywhere are being discussed because they're all affected by phenology.

The vernacular "backyard" is everyday, ordinary, familiar, and common. It's nearby and where you have influence. It's the geography that sustains you. And it's the environment that affects you as it changes.

 

Gray circle with line drawings of a clover, an ear, and a dragonfly

Your backyard

Your backyard is a dynamic place. The tree you walk by every day bears leaves, becomes bare, then bears leaves again. And in that tree, a cardinal is silent in December and then sings from January through July. Your backyard is dynamic in this cyclical way because it is sensitive to climate.

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Minnesota's climate

Sensitivity to climate is baked into being Minnesotan. It’s in the way we to market for rhubarb in April and relish corn on the cob in August. It’s the way our spring fever sets in the moment our cabin fever breaks. It’s how we use the seasons to index our memories and mark new chapters.

Minnesota's past

Shifting gears from seasonal happenings to a timescale much greater, sensitivity to climate is also baked into Minnesota's eco-evolutionary identity. Between the last Ice Age—about 12,000 years ago—and the last century, your Minnesota backyard had a stable climate. In those 10,000+ years, the lifeforms your backyard supports evolved in that steady climate. The result is our present-day home, our dynamic backyard. The result is our ecosystem, whose parts are profoundly interdependent and whose functioning is sensitive to climate.

Wherever you live, it's changing

But climate is changing. Increasingly, we comment on today’s weather by contrasting it to years past. We're increasingly uneasy about floods, droughts, wildfires, and other risks. No matter where your backyard is, climate change disrupts our nested homes: family, community, ecosystem, biome, continent, globe. Today, as we maintain our nested homes, we bear witness to climate change. 

 

Medicine Garden Event

Your phenology

Recalling the past, we might imagine our backyard, the crickets we heard, the leaves we jumped in, the snow we shoveled. In other words, we experience our backyard, and ourselves, being sensitive to climate. This is phenology. Phenology is studying—or simply observing—how lifeforms are sensitive to climate and have evolved their lifecycles in synchrony with seasons.

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Read more

What are the dynamics of your backyard? When you think of seasons, cycles, and change, what kinds of memories, questions or connections come to mind? What are the stories from your backyard that you tell?

These backyard questions help us get curious about life’s sensitivity to climate. And people’s backyard stories, when brought together, expand the way we care about our collective backyard, its sensitivity to climate change, and each other.

 

Stories of Climate Change and our Relationship to Place

Telling stories to dissolve boundaries

Backyard Phenology invites you to share a story about how your backyard is changing, and how what's happening is changing you. Through storytelling, we make room for many ways of knowing, and save space for many ways of not-knowing. Through listening, relationships emerge and boundaries between art and life dissolve.

 

Project summary and documentation

Backyard Phenology made its public debut in 2016 at Northern Spark, where the Climate Chaser was experienced by hundreds of visitors. From June 2017 to September 2018, Backyard Phenology partnered with several metro area organizations, engaging community groups in a design process to develop site-specific “phenology walks” that include observation, artistic expression, and reflection. Since 2019, members of the collective have presented at Franconia Sculpture Park, exhibited in the Regis Center for Art, published a podcast episode, and more. 

Academic writing:

  • Flick, Kate. (2021). Building Place-Based Stories About Climate Change Locally: Ecocultural Calendars. Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/225117.

Press:

Blog posts by Sam Graf: