Ultimately this philosophy allowed something to birth itself that could not have happened any other way. This approach was challenging for everyone, including the project's financial supporters, who maintained intrepid patience with my non-linear and unpredictable process. Usually we focused on the albatrosses, and we also turned to different subjects: fairy terns, the sea, the forest, a passing storm, or the island's omnipresent crumbling military infrastructure, never knowing whether that day's work would be used in the final film. I saw my directorial role as being the steward of an empty vessel, into which a yet-unknown story would arise spontaneously. Each day on the island, my team and I filmed and photographed whatever felt most interesting and beautiful, without judging our subjects' relevance.
The trips were approached as open-ended creative explorations, with no story or agenda in mind. With this intention, I avoided scripting any aspect of the film in advance. I wanted to experience the birds on their terms, imposing as few human judgments or preconceptions on them as possible. Through this journey, I held to a principle of emergence that served as the creative foundation for the project. The poetry of the albatross revealed itself layer by layer, as my team and I were gifted with intimate footage of every stage of their cycles of life, death, and birth. We learned to attune ourselves to their body language, so that we could film them up close without causing them anxiety. They allowed us to witness their most tender moments at astonishingly close range, as the mated pairs snuggled and built their nests together, their babies hatched from their eggs, and the fluffy chicks waited alone for their parents to return from their foraging trips to sea. Returning to Midway a total of eight times over four years, we experienced the birds' beauty, grace, and sentience more and more vividly with each trip.
This experience led her to explore consciousness as the most powerful leverage point for inspiring regenerative culture.On our second trip to Midway, the project's focus began to evolve, as we met the live albatrosses singing and dancing by the hundreds of thousands all over the island. Previously, she pioneered the concept of collaboration labs by founding NextNow Collaboratory, once described by the director of MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence as a “new kind of collective intelligence.” Claudia’s collaboration with IONS started when President Willis Harman invited her to join a five-year “Peace-building Through Business” inquiry at Fetzer Institute while she was director of the University of California, Berkeley Haas School‘s center for designing and delivering strategic learning programs for corporations while initiating social responsibility and sustainability curriculum. As a funder and citizen scientist, Claudia advises experimental projects with the potential to accelerate large-scale change, like World Future Coin, HeartMath’s Global Coherence Initiative, and Flow Genome Project. She’s also founding Chair of Invest in Yourself at Nexus Global Youth Summit and Network, bridging practical consciousness research with philanthropy, impact investing, activism, and social innovation. Claudia Welss is Chairman of the IONS Board of Directors and the board Science Committee.
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