When you walk through Salem, look down, what grows beneath your feet? Dandelion, chicory, mugwort, plantain, burdock, plants often labeled “weeds”, flourish in sidewalk cracks and disturbed soil. In this mural, a hand emerges from a cloud, offering a bouquet of these edible, non-native plants, bound with sweetgrass, a sacred medicine of the Naumkeag people.
These plants, like many communities in Salem, arrived here from elsewhere, adapted, and continue to nourish. Thank You for Your Offering honors their overlooked beauty and resilience. This work expands on my practice as a family archivist and community documentarian, and builds on projects like Find Your Lot in Life and Slán Abhaile/Safe Home, where I explore housing, class, place, and memory.
This mural invites viewers to reflect: What do you inherit? What do you give? And what unexpected offerings grow from the margins?