Understory Arts was founded in 2026 by four creatives who share a love of play, creativity, and making things together. The idea for Understory Arts emerged during a walk through the woods at FishDog Farm to see a natural amphitheater they had uncovered while clearing trees as part of a forest regeneration project. A conversation about the space opened up into bigger visions: land-based artist residencies, fireside chats about agriculture, concerts with cows in the audience, a massive mobile chicken discotheque that educates people about local food economies. The conversation kept going, and Understory took shape.
Our mission is to build community through creative work grounded in place. We value communities that bring together people with different backgrounds, perspectives, identities, and experiences. We are interested in what happens when a place is more than a backdrop—when being in relationship with the land can shift how we experience ourselves, others, and the world around us. We want the things we make to be experiences people can step into and make their own. That means participation isn’t just part of how our projects come together; it is part of the art itself. The community that takes shape along the way is a big part of what keeps us going.
Our Team
Megan Burke
Megan is a thinker and cultivator of possibility. A philosopher by training, she is drawn to big ideas and experiences that invite people to imagine—and play—with what could be. She has a particular reverence for land and the ways that being in relationship with it can transform how we think and live.
Alex Dallman
Alex is a builder, designer, dreamer, and dependable doer of things. With a background in STEM and ecology-based agriculture, she manages the working farm that Understory Arts grows from and is passionate about sustainable art that serves a purpose on the land and grows with it.
Nick Kleeman
Nick has put his physics degree to work in unorthodox ways: first circumnavigating the globe in a small sailboat, now developing a regenerative farm in the Coast Range of Oregon. After a decade of living a transient lifestyle, he learned there is great value in being firmly rooted, finding and building up a community, and making a difference at the local scale.
Arian Mobasser
Arian looks for divinity in the details. As a trained developmental scientist, educator, and facilitator of restorative practices, he’s interested in what becomes possible when we tend to the less obvious parts of ourselves, other people, and our environments — especially when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient. He also likes playing sick beats.