Connection with place and connection with materials are both very important to my work, and I see the two ideas as linked with materials representing the places they come from.  Places and materials are for me most powerful not when they are depicted and represented, but left to speak for themselves.  I favor subtle and temporary land art interventions and I am inspired by the words of Gutai Art founder Jiro Yoshihara:

Gutai art does not change the material but brings it to life. Gutai art does not falsify the material. In Gutai art the human spirit and the the material reach out their hands to each other, even though they are otherwise opposed to each other. The material is not absorbed by the spirit. The spirit does not force the material into submission. If one leaves the material as it is, presenting it just as material, then it starts to tell us something and speaks with a mighty voice. Keeping the life of the material alive also means bringing the spirit alive, and lifting up the spirit means leading the material up to the height of the spirit.