For Daveed Baptiste, returning to the Everglades through AIRIE.Foundation was not just a revisit, but a reintroduction.

What once felt unfamiliar, even intimidating, has become a space for deeper understanding through collaboration, conversation, and time spent in the landscape. Working alongside scientists, explorers, and others engaged with the environment, his experience reflects how proximity can shift perception.

His reflection also points to something broader. The Everglades, like many environments, carries assumptions about who belongs within it. Through his residency, those assumptions begin to open, revealing a wider range of voices, identities, and ways of engaging with place.

AIRIE.Foundation continues to create space for these encounters, where artists can look again, ask questions, and build new relationships with the environments that shape their work.