Reclaimed Ash Wood
This project is a recollection of a species being withdrawn from our environment. It began by visiting sites of Ash trees affected by the Emerald Ash Borer and working with the residents who lived under their canopy. Each shared their own story of how the trees came to be cut in response to this epidemic.
A tree’s history that can be read as text within a book. A story filled with character and growth, of weathered and missing pages. Walking through the avenues of grain and vacant space allows for the memory and absence to be re-experienced. Spectators may enter the story and become part of the subject themselves.
Our histories are experienced only within memory, where the effect we once had on the world is observable. Pages forgotten no longer have consequence to the present, except in their absence of the future. Perhaps when we can see ourselves seeing, reading our pages as they are being written, we can take authorship of the story we live.
our present
is still
in isolation
this loss
communal
a story paved in
avenues of grain
pages teeming with
character
vacancies
of growth
time
to build
a shelter
made of
absence
a shared
narration