Dear Human is a multispecies audio guide of Chicago’s West Ridge Nature Park, activating messages from non-human residents of the land: its pond, a large tree, a local deer, and others. The work is meant to be experienced outdoors with headphones and your own smartphone, merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology.
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This guide can be activated through the GPS-assisted audio app, GESSO, with transcripts provided at each stop.
To use, first download the app for your iOS or Android device. Create an account to make the tour work smoothly.
Next, select Chicago as your location and choose Dear Human from the “Self-Guided Walks” menu.
Proceed to the park entrance with your headphones and begin by activating the first track.
For many decades, the land that is now Chicago’s West Ridge Nature Park served as a dumping ground for debris as part of one of Chicago’s oldest cemeteries. During its renovation as a public park in 2013, artifacts revealed that it was previously part of an enormous precolonial Native American village. It later served as a center for trade, travel, and healing for the native Potowatami people and for the Miami, Peoria, Kickapoo, and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ tribes. In part due to federal urban relocation policies, Chicago is home to one of the largest urban American Indian communities in the United States, who continue to contribute to the life of this city and to celebrate their heritage, practice traditions, and care for the land and waterways. Dedicated as public park space in 2015, this Nature Park preserves a 21-acre oasis in the heart of the city, supporting native plants, birds, amphibians, deer, and other species, including a dedicated community of humans.
WELCOME
Please put on your headphones, and orient yourself with this track.
POND
Come close enough to see your reflection in the surface, and set down any heavy bags.
DEER
You might not see them, but they see you. Pause near dense foliage and put on your headphones.
Tick
Find a shady area with brush and tall grasses. Follow CDC guidelines to protect yourself while you listen.
HUMUS
Look for soil that is rich with organic matter, close enough to touch. Breathe deeply.
tree
Pay attention to find this large tree near the path. They’ve got something to say to you.
Dear Human was initiated through Navigations, a series of artist projects shared and realized in public/common space through the Roman Susan Art Foundation. It was designed as an audio guide through Chicago’s West Ridge Nature Park in alignment with The Available City as a partner program of the 2022 Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Special thanks to Sol Hinami-Mayorga, Katy Kelsey-Morgan, Gary Morrissey, Andrew S. Yang, and Margaret Morris for lending their voices to the organisms featured here.