Nature As Art

Ten inspiring examples to celebrate trees and reconnect with nature

By Alana Tucker

How do people engage with nature? Are they so far removed from it in their daily lives that it has become impossible? Is a connection to nature something people inherently crave? These are questions I ask myself, sometimes cheerily, as I consider the whimsy of the natural environment on a weekend walk, and other times, less so, as I note the urgency with how climate change and its impact on human life must be addressed.

The New York Times Compact

The answers to my questions may not be clear, but consider one way that the conversation can begin: nature as art. Art forms that celebrate nature allow us to reflect on complex or unique aspects of the human experience and how we feel and connect to the earth and one another. By merging the natural with the created world, we can allow for more conversation around what constitutes a human life and how to preserve and enhance it.

Now, this conversation is more important than ever—the world has changed drastically over the last few decades. More and more people across the United States live in urban, industrialized areas, and the average American now spends 90 percent of the time indoors. As a result, one challenge that city leaders face is ensuring their cities are not devoid of nature amidst development and encouraging citizens to utilize existing green spaces.

Of course, the Arbor Day Foundation is a firm believer that trees are not just “nice to have” but “need to have” in places where people live. As cities and towns seek to reinvigorate their connection to nature, trees are an obvious avenue. Trees are a pillar of the community just like any individual, except they do not talk or work or pay property taxes. For many decades, communities have found unique and captivating ways to celebrate the connections with trees. Educating the public about trees provides opportunities to interact with nature, which has been shown to improve cognitive ability, help with work-related mental fatigue, and increase memory performance.

Take for example Kamala Sankaram, a New York City composer, who has taken the recorded sounds of a forest in upstate New York to compose the life story of a 300-year-old White Oak from 1750 to 2050. New Yorkers gathered in Prospect Park to experience the sonic opera of a tree through a multi-channel speaker display enclosed in a copse of trees. This stirring composition narrates the events that a single tree has faced in its lifetime.

 
 

Creative work such as this is just one way to bring people together through trees. One of the key objectives of the Tree City USA program is to foster community pride among the residents. Founded in 1976 as one of the Arbor Day Foundation’s first recognition programs, it began with the simple vision of a greener, healthier America. The founders wanted citizens to engage and celebrate nature in the form of trees. Now, in its nearly 50 years of existence, the program has inspired thousands of cities to celebrate trees on an annual basis.

Here are a few examples of creative celebrations of trees from around the United States and the rest of the world:

Austin, Texas

As a tribute to trees, the city urban-forestry program teamed up with choreographers to create a dance that highlights the skill and dedication needed to maintain Austin’s urban tree canopy. The dance also helps the audience understand how to care for urban forests.

https://www.forkliftdanceworks.org/projects/the-trees-of-govalle/

 

New York City

As referenced above, this project by Sankaram translates the sounds of the trees into something people can listen to. She created a formula that rendered one year of a tree’s life into approximately two minutes. Sankaram recorded hours and hours of audio to create an exhibit called The Last Stand. This project invites the audience to listen to the last 300 years of the forest in a few hours.

https://creativetime.org/the-last-stand-kamala-sankaram/

 

galveston.com

Galveston, Texas

Sculpture artists have found a way to create art amid destruction. When a hurricane in 2008 destroyed much of the city’s urban tree canopy, artists banded together to create sculptures out of the damaged trees.

https://www.galveston.com/whattodo/tours/self-guided-tours/treesculpturetour/

Atlanta, Ga.

The annual Atlanta Dogwood Festival has grown into a massive event for local musicians and artists. However, the event was founded to celebrate the blooming of the local dogwood trees, signaling the start of spring. During the 80th anniversary of the festival, the city commissioned an interactive bronze sculpture shaped like a giant dogwood limb with massive blooms.

https://dogwood.org/about/

 

Somerville, Mass.

Residents created an art exhibit based on the trees in their yards, parks, and neighborhoods. They organized the exhibit to draw attention to the environmental benefits trees bring to the city.

https://somervilleartscouncil.org/ROOT

 
 

Glasgow, Scotland

The Climate Hub was an exhibition for COP26 this year. The artist filled a conference room with plant representatives from the 197 countries that ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The idea was to present speakers and audiences with actual representations of the subjects that will either benefit or be harmed from the policies agreed upon at the conference.

https://www.nytco.com/press/the-new-york-times-climate-hub-premieres-es-devlins-conference-of-the-trees-and-full-program-launch/

 

City of Melbourne

Melbourne, Australia

When officials in Melbourne assigned email addresses to trees to help citizens identify and track issues and damages, they instead found a way to show their love and appreciation. Citizens began sending fan mail to the trees, noting their gratitude and appreciation for the trees. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-when-australian-city-gave-trees-email-addresses


Worldwide

Konstantin Dimopoulos uses the blue trees exhibit around the world as an environmental call to action. He wants to draw people’s attention to the plight of deforestation.

https://kondimopoulos.com/the-blue-trees/

 

Worldwide

Tree whisperers are part of an ongoing international collaboration that invites every individual to think about a personal relationship with trees. The collaboration asks for submissions of memories people have involving trees on homemade paper, and the columns can be arranged and exhibited worldwide.

https://treewhispers.com/

 

Worldwide

The Singing Trees exhibit, which can be displayed globally, invites the public to interact with local trees. Residents of a community can approach the trees with lights and engage with them by singing, clapping, or playing an instrument.

https://limbicmedia.ca/aurora/singing-tree/

 

Reconnecting people with nature is no small task, but it is necessary. Without this connection, humans may forget why trees are needed in the first place. We may never have all the answers to the questions asked of us in this life, but one thing for certain is that we cannot stop asking them and seeking solutions. Nature as art can serve as a reminder of its importance, incite conversation and, hopefully, inspire people of all ages to recognize the vital importance of the trees around us.

 

Alana Tucker is the program manager for the Tree City programs at the Arbor Day Foundation, including Tree City USA and Tree Cities of the World. As an urban planner, she conducted streetscape and parks planning projects in Detroit prior to coming to the Foundation. She holds a Bachelor's in International Business from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Master's of Urban Planning from the University of Michigan. Her favorite tree is Populus tremuloides, the quaking aspen. Alana can be reached at atucker@arborday.org.

 
 
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