Invitations from the Land:
the Zena Highwoods
Premieres Dec 21, 2025
Invitations from the Land: the Zena Highwoods
is a year-long album of seasonal soundscapes recorded in the Zena Highwoods in the Eastern Catskills.
Accompanying this album, is a book of stories of the land, paintings, listening practices, ecological reflections, and forest transmissions exploring our relationship with our local wilderness and listening as climate care.
Sounds from the Zena Highwoods
Created in collaboration with the land and in partnership with the Woodstock Land Conservancy, this project features soundscapes from the Israel Wittman Sanctuary, a small, nature preserve in the heart of the Zena Highwoods in Saugerties, NY.
By focusing on recording in less than a square mile of forest, the scope of listening brings awareness to our closest ecological relations. Recorded at the winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice, and fall equinox, listeners are able to track the distinct changes in local environment at each significant seasonal shift for an entire year.
Israel Wittman Sanctuary, in the Zena Highwoods, Saugerties, NY
The Reciprocity of Sound
Based on the artist’s familial and Filipinx ancestral practices of tending ecological relations through sound, Invitations from the Land began several months prior to recording, by establishing a relationship with place through a series of listening sessions and sound offerings to the forest.
From this practice of reciprocity, a collaborative process emerged, whereby the artist took cues from the environment for ecological study, which eventually determined the locations and species to field record, paint, and specific listening practices and writings to accompany each recording.
Multi-Modal Connection
Accompanying these soundscapes is a book of creative-spiritual-ecological meditations, listening practices, species identification, paintings, and writings that were created on site at the time of each recording session.
Additionally, each soundscape is paired with a listening practice, intended to be used in conjunction with the recording. These practices along with the writings and paintings invite a multi-modal and accessible exploration of our personal connection to local wilderness.
Care Beyond Creation
In the spirit of continued care, all recordings and materials are created with careful consideration of the spiritual and ecological impact on these lands and in acknowledgement of land sovereignty.
Instead of distributing this project as a CD, it will be available online as a digital download of the album and book.
In addition, a portion of the proceeds for this album will be allocated to Woodstock Land Conservancy and Stop Zena Development, and Black and Indigenous land rematriation efforts for future protection and stewardship of the Zena woods.
Community Connections
this project is created with environmental consulting support from Woodstock Land Conservancy and will premiere on Wave Farm radio. 
Premieres December 21, 2025
About the Artist
Zaneta is an interdisciplinary sound artist, nature field recordist, and spirit medium whose work addresses climate care from the sacred, internal, and local experience.
Drawing from the work of their lola sa tuhód (great-grandmother) as a hilot healer in Iloilo, Philippines, and Filipinx practices of singing to land and vocal channeling nature spirits, Zaneta’s work explores relationship building with home ecology through singing to mountains, rivers, and forests, and approaching field recording and art-making as a true collaboration between artist and land.
Weaving local field recordings, environmental studies, sound art, community story gathering, ritual, and channeled sound, Zaneta creates experiences of deep communion with the more-than-human world. Experiences that evolve into deeper explorations of ecological belonging and personal stewardship through ongoing community exchanges between land and people. Inviting communities to remember their personal connection to local wilderness and how we cultivate relationship of care with our home ecology.
Their work also examines how listening and sounding, as inherently relational and reciprocal experiences, are essential eco-social practices that not only raise awareness of our close connections to non-human kin, but cultivate a unique sense of empathy and interconnectedness that is foundational to stewardship, and ultimately plays a vital role in environmental futures.
Zaneta’s work has been presented in spaces such as the Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles Natural History Museum, the Climate Imaginarium on Governor’s Island, and featured on WKNY Radio Kingston.
Their past projects Sacred Seasons (2020) and Where Land Meets Sky: Geophonic Transmissions for the Body (2022), were awarded the Brooklyn Arts Council grants, and they were a 2025 Strange Foundation Resident Artist.
Zaneta currently serves as the environmental artist-in-residence at Marydell Faith and Life Center at Hook Mountain in Nyack, NY. They also teach field recording, listening, and land communing workshops in the Hudson Valley.
Their upcoming project, Invitations from the Land: the Zena Highwoods (2025), was created in partnership with the Woodstock Land Conservancy and in collaboration with the Zena Highwoods, and will be premiering on WGXC Wave Farm Radio December 21, 2025, with the album and book released with a live premiere in Woodstock September 2026.
To learn more about follow them on IG @soundartmagic, or listen to their sound Substack, Moon Pool.
