Tree University (2013) was an outdoor classroom hosted by Futurefarmers with Jessica Gath & Christo Wood in which the deCordova Sculpture Park’s fallen trees (originally toppled during Hurricane Sandy) were used to explore all the creative possibilities that can stem from a single tree.
The tree slowly disappeared as the artists whittled and carved away its pieces into new objects (including a banquet table, chopsticks, pencils, letters for a printing, and a violin). But the tree’s spirit will live on in these communal objects and experiences and in the music composed to be played on the tree’s violin.
Humans lived on Earth for millenia before we were born and, grand or humble, left marks that influence our lives today. We owe our technology, our beliefs, our customs – our very bodies – to their lives, their work, their joys and suffering. Even the highest mind... is an homage to all who came before us and left behind biological materials and wisdom that nourish and teach us; from these materials and wisdom our own take root and grow, for us and for those who come later.
Return, video, 2005 | Shot on super 8 film by Scott McMahon
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as sure belongs to you.
– Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Likening, video, 2004 (sound up)