GHOST NETSP r o j e c t T i m e l i n e"We enter the Medicine Wheel
to find our places on the wheel of life and our relationship with all
of life, to find hidden reservoirs of gentle strength within ourselves
and find new ways of walking in harmony on the earth." February 1990. Rahmani leaves New York City to move to Vinalhaven Island, where she spends 1 year meditating on the concept of Safety, contemplating the present implications of past abuses and what it means to take care of yourself. At this time she decides to sell her California home to buy a former town dump that will be the physical site of Ghost Nets. January 1991. Rahmani begins Ghost Nets, a project that examines interdependence within the frameworks of ecology, personal health, feminism, gender roles, human relationships, and community. The project is broken into 3 different phases of 3 years each. P H A S E O N E, 1 9 9 1 through
1 9 9 3 The habitat systems that comprise Ghost Nets are designed during the Medicine Wheel phase of the project. The 2.5-acre property, like the Native American medicine wheel, is sectioned into quadrants. The eastern region is devoted to meadows, the west to uplands, the north to successional forest, and the south to salt marshes. Rahmani is diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), a debilitating disease with no known cure which leaves her exhausted much of the time. Ricki Soaring Dove, a student of Native American sweet medicine, mentors Rahmani in a series of ceremonies at the site beginning in 1991. The site is inaugurated in an 11 August traditional Medicine Wheel healing ritual by Grandfather Thunder Cloud (Cherokee), A neighbor brings Rahmani before the Vinalhaven board of appeals in the fall of 1991 on charges of misuse of the site under marine zoning regulations. Rahmani wins the case on a grandfather clause because a sawmill had been located previously on the site. In 1992, Rahmani, sick with CFS, builds her house. The house is designed with eco-architect Steve Robinson as part of the property's Medicine Wheel Garden. Engineered to withstand winter winds that routinely reach 60-70 m.p.h., the house allows minimal disruption to the microclimates of the property and reflects regional architectural styles. Four hundred saplings are planted in the spring of 1993 to restore and enhance the forest area. This number of trees is calculated based on the number used in the building of the house and her presence on the property and what the soil can bear. All 400 trees are watered by hand. Over 70% of the trees are lost over the course of the next few years, forcing a lesson about the microclimate of the property, the structure of the soil, and the fierceness of the winds. Rahmani works with the state planning office and local people to design water conservation leaflets for the island. P H A S E T W O, 1 9 9 4 through
1 9 9 6 In the Medicine Wheel, the fierce Atlantic North Wind (Justice) balances Mercy and the harshness of Reality. During this second, Rahmani begins to see her illness as a model for sustainable living, and her own experiences as lessons about interdependence and living lightly and meaningfully on the earth. She concentrates on establishing and studying plant communities in the riparian zone and engages in modest collaborations with local craftspeople to enhance the site and her home. Rahmani meets bioengineer Wendi Goldsmith in 1994 and in 1995 Michele Dionne of the Wells Reserve, an environmental research institution supported by state and federal funds. Both Goldsmith and Dionne become instrumental in the restoration of the salt marsh. In 1996, Rahmani is at the center of a series of controversial town planning meetings that pit development interests against conservationists. Press coverage of the rancor reaches all the way to the New York Times. The O.J. Simpson trial outcome coincides with the end of Kind Winds. The night of the verdict, Rahmani holds a candlelight vigil in the center of the town, inviting townspeople to join her. Ten neighbors attend, including the minister and several local leaders. This event, organized in the face of her continued alienation, becomes an important step in her acceptance into the community. P H A S E T H R E E, 1 9 9 7
through 1 9 9 9 Realization of the larger framework of overlaps and interdependences that thread together all relationships. Understanding of how intensely local efforts have global impacts, and how small gestures bring enormous change. Despite the unavailability of outside funds to enhance the riparian zone and proceed with establishing the salt marsh, Rahmani responds to her conscience and the counsel of her mentor, Alan Kaprow, who says, "Fame is not what's important in the end. It's how you live your life," and continues her work. In April 1997 the salt marsh is restored. This endeavor involves state-of-the-art stabilization and re-vegetation techniques executed over a 3-day period. It is considered a model in salt-marsh restoration. Dionne and Rahmani begin designing research models to extrapolate what can be learned from the site to salt-marsh systems throughout the Gulf of Maine. In 1997, a garden club tour that includes Rahmani's site draws over 300 people from the island and the mainland to view the refurbished marsh. At a College Art Association conference in Boston, Rahmani initiates a collaboration with California artists Susan Steinman and Jo Hanson to present a panel on the state of the art of environmental art for the 1999 College Art Association's conference in Los Angeles. This association blossoms into an email list serve for eco-art professionals that now includes over 40 international participants on a juried basis. In 1998, Rahmani becomes Chair of a newly formed Citizen's Ferry Committee appointed by the town Selectmen. Rahmani develops a landscaping plan for the new ferry terminal with artist Joan Wye for the Maine Department of Transportation. She is a finalist for the Lindbergh Foundation grant. Bioengineer Wendi Goldsmith presents Rahmani's work at the "Manufactured Sites" international conference at the Harvard graduate School of Design. Rahmani begins designing an environmental art program for the College of the Atlantic with COA educator Susan Lerner. In 1999, Rahmani presents work and contributes to environmental problem solving for the state of Israel at the 1st International Art and Ecology Workshop/Conference. She is the first artist to present a paper on a hard-science panel, "Monitoring," chaired by Tyson Holmes for the Society for Ecological Restoration international conference in San Francisco. Proposals to redesign Mt. Desert island and the city of Portland, Maine, based on pre-settlement waterways and animal migration routes, are accepted, respectively, at the College of the Atlantic and the University of Southern Maine for residencies in the year 2000. She is a finalist for a Creative Capital Grant, The Andy Warhol Foundation and a grant recipient from the Nancy H. Gray Foundation for Art in the Environment. CFS symptoms still affect Rahmani on a daily basis, although she has regained at least 60% of her capacity. It has required her to live consciously at all times, accepting her limitations and interdependences. Raised Jewish, Rahmani recently began singing with the local Union church choir and is currently exploring the newfound pleasures of her own voice. The first song she has written, "Song to the Earth," based on Schubert's "Ave Maria," will debut on her web site 20 March 2000, in celebration of the Ghost Nets closure. She is at work on her book on the Ghost Nets project, due out this year. |