Flaming Forests, Desolate Dawn reconciles the parallels of war and climate change—human-driven sources of displacement—while also centering diasporas as cultural witnesses and agents of change. In collaboration with the Thailand-based Tacet(i) Ensemble, this twenty-five-minute piece will weave traditionally notated music, DIY and hybrid instruments, and video. An interplay of images displaying human-disrupted landscapes (such as deforestation) and the fallout of war (the Fall of Saigon) will be projected as the musicians use reclaimed materials to transmute the natural timbre of their instruments. While in Rome, I will expand on these concepts through the military history of the Roman Empire and current environmental degradation in Italy: from the parasite-infested pines of Rome to the marble quarries of Tuscany to the sinking of Venice.