April 19, 2020. Quarantine day 37. After weeks of non-stop screen time, we took a very long walk through a nature preserve in Little Compton, RI. Every ten or twenty feet along the trail we found another wooden panel with carefully handwritten messages, like captions in the woods. In total, maybe a few hundred panels spread out over several miles of trails. Some contained photographs mounted in plastic sleeves, bibliographic material, cross references, highly specific descriptions of animal activity we may or may not see just beyond the sign. I was in awe of this elaborate system, thoroughly researched, and lovingly handmade. I photographed a few dozen but something's lost in the photos. Something about memory and care, and about augmented reality, and how a rich network of information can infuse a very large site, and our sight, without selling us anything, just offering up a quiet position, a curious perspective, just constant ambient attention, just beyond the path, between a body moving through space and what we think of as “natural.”

– Paul Soulellis