Woolscapes explores how wool —as material, practice, and relationship— can shift human perception and open new ways of being with other-than-human life.

I immersed myself in the lived worlds of shepherds and sheep, observing not only techniques of care but also the gestures, rhythms, and negotiations that sustain multispecies reciprocity. Rather than studying wool as commodity, I engaged with it as a living connector: a fiber that binds together land, animal, and human in cycles of interdependence.

The project began with the question: What forms of relationship emerge when we approach wool not only as a material, but as a generator of multispecies entanglements? Instead of treating sheep as objects of study, I sought to listen to their presence—through their agency in the flock, their influence on landscapes, and the knowledge shepherds cultivate in relation to them. Inspired by theories of becoming-with and collaborative survival, these insights were translated into gestures of care, attention, and shared dwelling.

Each encounter with wool unfolded a fragment of pastoral life without reducing it to nostalgia or symbolism. Working through fieldwork, interviews, and craft-based processes, I shaped narratives and forms that invite touch, presence, and reflection. Some moments were intimate—such as learning to read a sheep’s subtle signals —while others emerged collectively, like the shared labor of fencing, grazing, or protecting land. Together, these experiences compose a landscape of relations rather than a collection of objects.

The work culminated in a cartographic installation —a map of woolscapes— that invites visitors to move through interconnected stories, images, and materials. This space was not a linear exhibition but a terrain of entry points, where one could pause, wander, or return. By inhabiting it, visitors stepped into a multispecies dialogue where roles blurred: shepherds, sheep, landscapes, and researchers all co-constituted the field of attention.

Woolscapes is not about romanticizing pastoral life. It is about softening extractive gazes, honoring the agency of sheep and the wisdom of shepherds, and creating conditions where multispecies interdependence becomes tangible. It offers an embodied space for reflection, care, and response-ability within the fragile, shared world we inhabit.