A Tree’s Worth

Art- Science Collaborations - Ailsa Wild, Aviva Reed, Briony Barr, Bonhula Yunupingu, Damien Wright, Jeanine Leane, Marco Amati, Melissa Neave, Office of other Spaces, Scott Rayburg, Selena de Cavelho, Sofia Sabbagh

Curators - Aviva Reed & Marco Amati

Counihan Gallery. Brunswick Melbourne

27th April- 26th May, 2019

This exhibition asks us to re- think & re-frame trees

A Tree's Worth questions the paradox of language, exploring the role that data may play in the contemporary human journey of learning to listen to trees, simultaneously celebrating trees and their 'worth' in society.

This exhibition is part of the Art + Climate = Change festival, 2019.

Media links here:

The Age & The Wood Review

Language frames the way in which we see the world. Recently, the term 'ecosystem services' has become a way to describe the important role nature plays in 'supporting' humans. Often criticized for language that commodifies nature, giving it a monetary value to be bartering with, it also gives nature a bartering force within the governance structure that currently exists. This exhibition raises ideas around earth rights, voice, agency and the capacity of trees to mitigate a changing climate. This exhibition is a collaboration between artists, writers, scientists, planners, policy makers and trees.

This art- science exhibition raises complex ideas around earth rights, nature's agency & trees within our landscape.

manifesto

by aviva reed

Trees are sophisticated community capacity builders.

Capable of creating homes for a multitude of beings, not just through the structural scaffolding they provide in their shapes, forms and hollows, but also in their ability to replenish and nurture the soil they grow in through their roots. They also provide shade and shed leaves, feeding the soil, enabling more trees to grow. A soil is never happy without a plant growing in it. They need each other to thrive, for the entire community to survive. And with them, comes more communities. Diverse communities. Resilience.

 Trees are sophisticated of ecological engineers.

 They also invigorate the atmosphere, clearing it of particulates, absorbing carbon dioxide and adding oxygen. They feed water vapour into the air, creating pressure gradients, creating rain. Trees defy gravity and push water into the atmosphere, like a pump, bringing the rain back to their community.

 Trees are important members of our community, often mutilated, enslaved and murdered.

A tree has a right to exist, persist and evolve.