sculptural installation, installed at experimental digital arts gallery, broad art center @ UCLA
June 5-14, 2008
the forgiving tree lies at the intersection of art, design, and ecology. it aims to represent and encourage the precise ecological gesture that is needed at this time in human development – the use of closed loop regenerative technology in all departments – of a cradle to cradle technosphere. our current civilization is much like the little boy in Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, who uses up his natural resources completely. The Forgiving Tree makes transparent the process of making media from Earth, and asserts that humanity, as individuals and collectives, must directly and locally reconfigure our built environment for wise and frugal sustainable human impact on the ecological system we live in.
“The garbage can is a design flaw. Like many physical manifestations of our culture, its use is rooted in a world of unlimited resources that never existed. The fact that we continue to build a culture centered around disposability and obsolescence proves that we have not yet learned to adapt to the world we actually live in.”
“In nature, trees are a closed loop. Consider the apple tree. The apple tree draws water and nutrients from the soil, and absorbs solar energy from its leaves through photosynthesis. The blossoms of the tree grow large and bear fruit. If the fruit is not all eaten, it will fall to the ground and rot. The seeds will become exposed and some of them will grow into new trees. The remaining seeds and rotting fruit decompose into soil, which continues to nourish the tree as it grows larger each year.”
“The paper tree is a closed loop. Sheet paper is shredded and bunched together to create the foliage. The foliage can be harvested, soaked and blended together with water to form paper pulp. The pulp is then screened and molded into sheets, drained, couched and pressed. If left to dry, the resulting paper product retains some of the qualities of the tree paper, and can be shredded again. If wet, the paper pulp can be applied to the paper tubes to strengthen the tree trunk.”
The Forgiving Tree was featured in Coalesce, the 2008 Senior Show at UCLA D|MA Experimental Digital Arts Gallery.