Jonathan Olinger

Co-founder and Steward

Emmy-nominated filmmaker, builder and mayordomo of the Cienegita acequia.

Jonathan Olinger is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and the founder of HUMAN, a storytelling studio that has made films with the United Nations, The Nature Conservancy, charity: water and the World Bank Group across some 100 countries. His work has premiered in the UN General Assembly and reached hundreds of millions of people. At the LAND he is a builder first. Much of what you touch here, from the tile to the plumbing to the concrete underfoot, he put in with his own hands, learning each trade as the houses asked for it. He serves as mayordomo of the Cienegita acequia, the ditch that has carried water from Polvadera Creek to these fields since 1807, which mostly means walking the ditch, clearing it each spring and keeping the water moving for the neighbors downstream. He and Maya made the LAND as a place to create. He still thinks the best work starts outside.