Climate Stories
Hands On the Land: Central Oregon Climate Stories
This body of work began in 2022 and 2023 during two month-long residencies at Pine Meadow Ranch for Art and Agriculture in Sisters, Oregon. There, I interviewed and cast the hands of 40 people in central Oregon. Through these interviews, I developed a deep understanding of central Oregonians’ very personal encounters with climate change. Hands on the Land sits at the intersection of art and science. In it, the 40 interviews form an informal collection of ethnographic data in the form of stories.
Early in the project, I asked my long-time collaborator Mei-ling Lee to activate the work with sound. Through our joint efforts, we have created interactive, multisensory installations for visitors to enjoy. By pushing a button next to a hand or scanning a QR code, visitors can hear a snippet of the hand owner’s interview.
Hands on the Land was generative, growing into the works you see below.
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Illusion of Infinite Water (2025)
Sandra Honda and Mei-ling Lee
The title was inspired by the phrase “illusion of infinite water” spoken by an interviewee in the Hands on the Land project. Forty years ago when her parents purchased the land, she believes her parents held an illusion of infinite water. Today, she still farms the land. But the reality has changed. Drought and dwindling groundwater supplies threaten agriculture in the region.
About the sound composition (Lee)
Illusion of Infinite Water plays on a continuous loop into the gallery space. The piece uses a 4-channel (quadraphonic) composition connected to the sound installation of the same name. Using recordings of single water droplets, the piece transforms one simple sound through duplication, pitch shifting, and reverberation to create the illusion of endless water.
Illusion of Infinite Water
2025
55 x 216 inches painting (Honda) + 20 minute sound loop (Lee)
Acrylic on paper, 4-channel audio
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Love Letters (2025)
LOVE LETTERS is an interactive installation that visitors create.
The 40 interviews in the Hands on the Land project held pages of beautiful turns of phrase, authentic expressions of caring for community, love of place, and understandings of interconnectedness betwixt and between land, ecosystem and each other. By taking an envelope, opening it, reading the “letter” inside, and posting it on the wall, viewers are encouraged to slow down and contemplate the contents of a single letter, yet view the “community of thought” as a whole as they appear on the wall over the course of the exhibition. When viewers add a comment to a letter, they become participants in dialogues with the ever-expanding community conversation.
Love Letters
2025
Variable
Paper, envelopes, desk, chair, potted plant, blackboard, sticky notes, tape, pens, chalk, speaker, digital media player
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Sandra Honda and Mei-ling Lee
A Meditation On Place (2022)
Sandra Honda
During the first days of the artist’s residency at Pine Meadow Ranch in Sisters in 2022, I spent part of my mornings making rubbings from stumps of felled Ponderosa pine on the ranch. The Ponderosa is an iconic species of the region. Quote from a resident: “People from the old days until present really idolized those big old [Ponderosa] pine trees.”
A Meditation on Place
2022
Variable
Graphite on paper
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What Will the Future Hold? (A Science Story) (2025)
Sandra Honda
Many people don’t know about the Oregon Climate Assessment, a scientific consensus report released every other year. On the wall is an excerpt from the Seventh Oregon Climate Assessment published in January 2025. A work of 66 scientists across disciplines, the report describes “how climate change is affecting Oregon’s environment and natural systems, economy, and communities, and presents projections of future impacts under varying emissions scenarios.” More simply: What’s happened and is happening to us? And how can we prepare for what’s to come?
What Will the Future Hold? (A Science Story)
2025
Variable
Ink and toner on paper​
Handscapes (2025)
Sandra Honda
Process photographs looking into hand molds (“handscapes”) prior to plaster casting as reminders of what we leave behind.
Handscapes
2025
​16x20 inches (unframed); 20x24 inches (framed)
Inkjet prints on archival paper
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