"This is an ecosystem in process. You are an ecosystem in process. We think you should meet."

So begins the "field guide" to How to Build a Forest, a provocative piece of performance art that ran for two weeks this past June in New York City. Created by the art duo PearlDamour (Katie Pearl and Lisa D'Amour) largely in response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the eight-hour piece takes visitors on a surreal journey through the creation of an artificial old-growth forest.

Visitors are encouraged to wander amid the Seussian landscape, consulting their guides for information on the materials' origins and the industrial processes used to make them. How to Build a Forest will be presented at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, in New Orleans, next spring.