Current and past artworks and projects including interactive installations, photography, film, public interventions, social practice, and research strands.
The Typhoon Queens are an ecological artist collective formed in 2019 during a typhoon in Osaka, Japan, with members from Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Our work is part exhibition, part experiential story. Combining physical works, stories, sound, moving image, and performance, … Continue readingTyphoon Queens
In 2019, I directed an international arts festival featuring interactive, place-based art, workshops, concerts, walks, talks, and storytelling events. Taking place at multiple locations in Osaka’s “Kitakagaya Creative Village,” the City as Nature Festival aimed at cultivating our awareness of urban environmental landscapes. At the … Continue readingCity as Nature Festival
A platform designed, built, and curated together with Carmen Bouyer, and Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro for the Nature of Cities Summit, a global conference of nearly 400 ecologists, urban planners, academics, scientists, and civic leaders from 52 countries, working to create cities that are better for both people … Continue readingFRIEK (Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Knowledge)
This exhibition series features poetic verse and philosophical concepts collected over the course of five years of field research and study on natural farming, conducted in Japan, Korea, Scotland, and the United States. Although regarded positively by environmental experts, the practice of natural farming is … Continue readingWisdom From the Field
The Branch is a small studio and alternative gallery space built by Patrick and his wife Suhee. Nestled in a small alley in the Kitakagaya neighborhood of Osaka, Japan, The Branch hosts seasonal events and exhibitions featuring locals and visitors from abroad, exploring the nature … Continue readingThe Branch Studio
In October 2017, Ten blank canvases were placed in Gomsil Forest, a remote forest in the mountains of South Korea. The forest was respectfully asked to spend a year making artworks on the canvases. Out of the ten original canvases, the forest allowed us to … Continue readingForest is the Artist
Poetry, in the voice of humans and in nature, interact in a series of films that moves both visually and musically as a progression, a subtle story of interconnected scenes. One Minute Meditations comprises moving-image scenes, sound, and instrumental music, filmed primarily during several years of life … Continue readingOne Minute Meditations
A series of short films combining meditative moving-image scenes, sound, and instrumental music. … Continue readingOne Minute Meditations
We revitalized an old building and empty urban lot, turning them into an ecological art and media lab in Osaka, Japan. In the space, we host community workshops and exhibitions aimed at re-connecting more us more deeply to our environment and the world we live in.
Medium: photographyLocations: InternationalYears: 2007 — Current This ongoing series explores the streets of major cities throughout the world in the early hours of the morning. The photographs — partially a result of insomnia-driven wanderings, partially of an obsession with pure structure of urban settings — offer … Continue readingNightlight
A documentary film and long-term international dialogue about food, earth, and happiness, based on a Japanese ‘Natural Farming’ philosophy of living with the environment.
It begins with a temporary restaurant where guests are not served dinner, but instead informed “your dinner will be ready in six weeks, after we grow your food”… … Continue readingREALtimeFOOD
Launched in 2011 by Patrick M. Lydon and Suhee Kanag, SocieCity is an international collective of artists, writers, and other professionals who are working to build long-term social and ecological well-being by inspiring empathic relationships between people and the environment.
Approximately 7,000 leaves make up this temporary installation, created over the course of four weeks during an ‘open to the public’ build process where visitors could engage in the process. Each leaf was picked by the artist, one-by-one from the urban port-side neighborhood where the … Continue readingOsakako Nature Mandala
A book of forty five postcards, each with an image from our travels to natural farms, and bite-sized quotes from the natural farmers in Korea, Japan, and the United States. … Continue readingFinal Straw: Wisdom from the Field (book)
The farms in this image series look more like wild fields than food growing operations. This is a big part of why these farms are such a powerful solution for a host of ecological issues, including climate change, soil loss, resource depletion, pollution, and the … Continue readingFarmscapes
We typically separate what is “urban” from what is “nature”. The photographs in Wonderland #3: Trees Thriving in Glorious Nature suggests subtle moments of interconnection. Photographed in cities around the world over the course of more than a decade, these frames depict moments where trees … Continue readingWonderland #3: Trees Thriving in Glorious Nature
Medium: light painting, soundYear: 2010 – currentLocation: international Green is an image and sound study of plant life in urban spaces around the world. Part photography, part performance, part soundscape, the works are printed on a handmade Japanese ‘washi’ paper, and exhibited along with soundscapes based on the … Continue readingGreen
Medium: two channel film with soundLocations: Japan, ScotlandYears: 2013 Two Islands is a two-channel film and sound installation; a study and dialogue between two small island communities, one in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, and one in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea. Trailer During the Summer of 2013, myself and … Continue readingTwo Islands
A cultural and ecological dialogue between two island communities, and across their borders. Based on work done during an artist/researcher residency on a small island in Japan.
Using research and interactive media to visualize connections between people and environment and the vital support systems of community and agriculture.
An installation which looks at food production in a tactile way, this living sculpture exists for the cabbage to slowly feed off of the energy of the decomposing burger.
An ongoing series of vignettes where written prose, ideas, and musings are paired together with a photographic image. … Continue readingImage and Word
From Asia, to Europe, to North America, a survey of human-cultivated landscape and harmonious relationships between the land and people. … Continue readingFarmscapes
A temporary ‘research centre,’ established within Edinburgh’s TENT Gallery as an active workspace for catalyzing new ways of thinking about growth. … Continue readingCentre for Endless Growth
An interactive installation which emphasizes a re-connection of people with the sources, and costs, of food, enabling spontaneous acts of community seed bombing to take place.
A pilot program working with high school aged students using photography and writing to tackle real world social issues affecting them. … Continue readingYouth on Assignment
Medium: sound and video installation Location: Center for Carbon Innovation, Edinburgh, UK Year: 2014 This collaborative multimedia installation takes per-capita carbon emissions statistics for 200 of the world’s countries, and maps them with light and multi-channel soundscape to our most personal form of carbon emission, the human … Continue readingCarbon Symphony
If we’re making decisions about the value of nature, shouldn’t nature have a seat at the bargaining table? When the very first World Forum on Natural Capital took place in Edinburgh, the organizations who hosted it made clear their mission to put a price tag … Continue readingThe Centre for Endless Growth
A video-based work exploring the concept of ‘harvest’ within rural-agrarian and urban-consumer society, Harvest employs two-channel video, projected side-by-side into urban environments.
A collaborative multimedia installation, produced for the Edinburgh Center for Carbon Innovation, mapping carbon emissions on a global scale with image and sound.
Medium: cheesburger, cabbage, soilYear: 2012Location: TENT Gallery | Edinburgh, UK This living sculpture was installed in TENT Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland for a week. The sculpture pairs the most energy-efficient food to produce (the cabbage) with one of the least energy efficient foods (a cheeseburger). … Continue readingWhat is Food (Cabbage Eating a Hamburger)
One image for each human:nature story collected, these images provide visual glimpses at natural locations identified in folklore by the people of Megijima. … Continue reading[HUMAN:NATURE] – Landscapes
Medium: seeds, washi paper, glass jar, spoonLocations: Yamaguchi, Japan; Edinburgh, UKYear: 2013 – current An interactive installation created for the Eco Art Village Project with Suhee Kang. Free Food Kit considers the re-connection of people with their source — and cost — of food. The Free Food Kit … Continue readingFree Food Kit
Medium: film, interactive media, social practiceLocation: Setouchi International Triennale / Megijima, JapanYear: 2013 In the Summer of 2013, I had the opportunity to lead an amazing team — Suhee Kang, Johann Barbie, Song E Lee — along with nearly fifty Japanese volunteers in a project combining art, … Continue reading[HUMAN:NATURE]
This ongoing series explores the streets of major cities throughout the world while the streets are completely devoid of human life. … Continue readingNightLight
Green is a painterly image and sound experiment and a ‘feeling’ study of plant life in urban spaces around the world. The pieces are printed on a special Japanese ‘washi’ paper which is handmade from plant fibers, and include digitally linked soundscapes.
Medium: two channel videoLocations: Edinburgh, UK; Yamaguchi, Japan; Nagoya, JapanYear: 2012 A video-based work exploring the concept of ‘harvest’ within rural-agrarian and urban-consumer society. Harvest depicts a local consumer procuring harvest from a local supermarket (right), and a farmer hand-harvesting the same rice in the country of origin … Continue readingHarvest
Shows, projects, and workshops produced during the ‘Active Intent’ series of shows in 2012 during MFA studies in the “Art, Space & Nature” program at the Edinburgh College of Art / University of Edinburgh.
Community-oriented short-take documentaries which highlight and help stimulate development of healthy, diverse, creative communities around the world.