In September 2024, Maoya created “Tonglen with the Biosphere’s Breath” for the Berkeley Alembic Equinox event, an installation and visual mediation of ecosystem-atmosphere interactions. The installation invites partipants to practice exchanging self with other and dissolve as the radiant compassion of ecosystems.
Ecosystem-fog visuals accompanied by poetry guided participants into what it feels like to be the biosphere and host infinite interconnected relationships. This piece was combined with mesmerizing Dyantra simulations of ecosystem water, carbon, and energy fluxes developed in collaboration with artist David Glowacki and brought to life with flux data from the Mayberry restored wetland in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
“Through the metaphor of the biosphere’s breath – the constant exchange of energy, water, and carbon – participants contemplated how ecosystems manifest pure radiant compassion. The invitation was to dissolve the boundary of self and the biosphere and experience Breath, the constant giving and receiving that sustains life on Earth and brings us together. – Maoya Bassiouni
