The Listening Fence
The Listening Fence is an evolving, participatory outdoor installation that invites the public into a shared act of remembrance, reflection, and reciprocity. First installed across the back fence of the Riverside Arts Center's sculpture garden in the fall of 2025, as part of The Terrain Biennial, the work weaves together ephemeral materials—handmade paper, thread, image, wind, and intention—with community participation and poetic ritual.
The Listening Fence consists of a series of paper strips handmade by the artist using natural fibers and dyes, tied with thread, gathered along the rear fence. These “whispers”—short reflections, prayers, or messages—are created by the public in response to a simple invitation:
What would you like to release, remember, or offer to the world?
Visitors may gather handmade paper, watercolor pencils and crayons, and twine from a small drop-box, write their messages and contribute directly by tying them to the hanging cords.
Over time, these paper pieces weather, fade, and dissolve, an intentional and poetic element of the work —honoring the cycles of impermanence, care, and quiet presence. Threads connecting the messages weave between fence slats, creating a luminous, living portal of collective breath.
At the close of the exhibition, the papers will be individually documented then burned in a ritual fire, the ashes of which will be used for the creation of a new work.
It is my intention that this project travel and grow over time, spreading a shared conversation of compassion across our communities. If you would like to talk about bringing The Listening Fence to your gallery, community, please do get in touch. Let’s make some magic together.
If you visited The Listening Fence, I would love for you to share your notes through images and text. You can send them to me for inclusion here or share on Instagram using the #thelisteningfence You can also tag me @hillary_irene_johnson
I would be remiss if I didn’t offer my deep thanks to a few people in particular here:
Joanne Iono who brilliantly runs the galleries at Riverside Art Center who offered me the invitation to participate in the Terrain Biennial at the Center. Thank you Joanne for shepherding this project from idea to reality with so much grace and generous support.
Melissa Potter who first taught me forms and ways of papermaking and community engagement which radicalized my views of what might be possible and whose own generosity of spirit makes all in her lineage proud.
Amy Leners who was my first teacher in the magic of the papermaking world at Columbia College who was so kind and generous to let me into the space and taught me a kind of precision I still dream about. I will never forget that first day of magic and papery alchemy.
Ross Sawyers, then Chair of the Photography Department at Columbia College who facilitated and cleared the way for me to access what I needed and seem to know it even before I did.
Thank you. Thank you.