To the fallen trees...
To the fallen trees…
9 October 2022, One Tree Hill, Tremont
What if we memorialized ecological loss like we did battles?
(Alan Sonfist, artist, 1968)
Taking the material wreckage of the extreme weather event of the Victorian windstorms (2021) as a starting point, To the fallen trees… was a public and performative artwork presented in 2022. This creative engagement of local writers, artists and residents at the site of One Tree Hill, Tremont, created a shared space and responsive connection to place. To the fallen trees… explored eco-anxiety through affective engagement where hundreds of tall, mature Eucalyptus trees were dramatically felled during the windstorms, destroying local bushland areas, schools and local people’s homes. This wreckage laid in neat piles for 14 months at One Tree Hill, an emotive reminder of the destruction of the wind. As the massive piles of debris lay dormant, new growth began to form within these chaotically reorganised piles of tree debris before they finally returned to the earth through burning by local park rangers. As artists we witnessed this cycle of extreme destruction of our beloved trees and their return to the earth where they originally emerged from.
A performance of the public reading of written letters to these fallen trees drew attention to ecological loss, holding space for collective memory and personal emotional responses to the destruction, and created local meaning making while activating social care. The documentation of these community poetics informed the creation of a collective memorial for the fallen trees in audio, performative and visual forms, creating a dialogue with the local context. The project was performed on Sunday 9 October and was edited into a soundscape.
Listen to the soundscape composed by Ai Yamamoto here: To the fallen trees…
Collaborating artists: Tammy Wong Hulbert, Marnie Badham, Ai Yamamoto and George Akl.
Community participants: Julie Tipene O’Toole, Lia Hills, Emmet Wong Hulbert, Richard & Katelin Farnsworth, Cameron Semmens, Marian Spires, Leslie Almberg, Liz Millman and Emmet Wong Hulbert.
Presented in partnership with the Big Anxiety Festival 2022, Yarra Ranges Art Attack, Yarra Ranges Regional Museum and ngurrak barring.