The Trees Are Listening, Are You?
This site-specific installation is part of the 2nd Annual Creative Ecology Event. An opportunity to join the community via individual creative expression. Art practices that connect to place and imagine new futures for our communities. A celebration of expression and imagination inspired by our connection and work with the land.
This installation calls on the viewer to listen, first to the infinitely skilled vocals of World O World performed by The Aeolians of Oakwood in Huntsville, AL, written by Jacob Collier, conducted by Jason Max Ferdinand, recorded in 2018. WorldOWorld
Followed by the haunting sounds of coal in 135Cars
How Would You Live Then?
Mary Oliver
What if a hundred rose-breasted grosbeaks
flew in circles around your head? What if
the mockingbird came into the house with you and
became your advisor? What if
the bees filled your walls with honey and all
you needed to do was ask them and they would fill
the bowl? What if the brook slid downhill just
past your bedroom window so you could listen
to its slow prayers as you fell asleep? What if
the stars began to shout their names, or to run
this way and that way above the clouds? What if
you painted a picture of a tree, and the leaves
began to rustle, and a bird cheerfully sang
from its painted branches? What if you suddenly saw
that the silver of water was brighter than the silver
of money? What if you finally saw
that the sunflowers, turning toward the sun all day
and every day – who knows how, but they do it – were
more precious, more meaningful than gold?
Mary Oliver, Blue Iris: Poems and Essays, Penguin Random House, 2006.