The Art Shanty Festival takes place on frozen Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, MN, between January and February. The Art Shanty Projects are focused on community engagement, togetherness, experiential learning, and connection to the forces of nature.

For the 2026 Art Shanty Festival, the Ecotone Collective (consisting of Abel Santos Meeker, Vernon Vanderwood, Connor Garber, Rhianna Hajduch, Damaris Benitez Franco, and more) is fabricating and installing an architectural installation.

Our shanty is based on ecological phenology wheels, which mark seasonal and cyclical shifts in nature. Phenology wheels are indicators of how recurring events take place across place and time; they map out the movements and behaviors of species, migratory pathways, patterns in landscapes over the course of seasons, and so on. Our shanty is an immersive phenology wheel that participants can move through, mark observations, witness representations of great phenological processes on Earth, and interact with the sculptural centerpiece that symbolizes interconnectedness.

The Phenology Wheel shanty emphasizes the importance of being witnesses to life in its dynamic nature, the intelligence of intuition, and the freedom of movement. Our intention is to activate the space through fashion, sound, breath-work, and other mediums, as well as iterate and reinstall the Phenology Wheel across seasons, commissioning various artists across mediums along the way in reimagining it.

The Art Shanty Projects provide a small stipend, but is primarily based on volunteer hours and community engagement. We are kindly asking our community to support our endeavor in creating an interactive and unique space to bring people together in nature to be witnesses to the beauty of Earth's inherent intelligence.

Link to our Shanty page