2006-Present.

This is a tree-focused international research initiative, intended to explore the relationship between the largest things in the world, and climate change. Artists and musicians work with technologists and scientists to reveal the biogenic interaction of trees with the changing atmospheric chemistry of cities. The intent of the project is to reveal a tree’s role in atmospheric exchange, while trying to understand the potential for human-nonhuman empathy, and its relationship to imaginative and responsible human response.

For more, read the Eden3 Project website.

This mandala is a metaphor for human responsibility for nature. Drawing with sand over two weeks, a fragile and complex map of recovering ecosystem is revealed. This is a natural environment which has been lost, then recovered. Human values and actions will either undermine or sustain that recovery.

The creation and destruction of the mandala occurred during the GROUNDWORKS exhibition at the Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 2005. The darkest brown sand for the floodplain areas is actual sand from the Monongahela River, and the reddish brown areas are from the banks of stream effected by acid mine drainage. The construction took several days, and was then ritually dismantled shortly after completion.

Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning “cycle.” It consists of many symbols and layers of meanings. Mandala supports A meditation about the Universe, its energy, and life and death. The dominant image in the mandala are the bright blue rivers and streams in Allegheny County, PA. It represents the three rivers (the |Allegheny River and the Monongahela River which drain to the Ohio River.) as well as streams, floodplains, watersheds boundaries, and forest along the rivers.

2000-2005

A five year artists initiated research and planning project, taking the three rivers, fifty-two streams and the riparian banks as the aesthetic focus of a body of work which would support municipalities and non-profits interested in regional preservation and restoration. The project team spent four-years on the water working out of and with specific communities to map and examine the aesthetic form, function and values of the rivers and streams of Allegheny County Pennsylvania. The artists worked with attorneys, planners and scientists to examine regulation and policy, making contributions to water issues and land issues which would result in new parks, preserved lands and zoning protected open spaces.

For more, please see the 3r2n Project website.

Join Us for a Free River Boat Ride and Knotweed Dialogue!

What: View knotweed along the riverbanks while experts give presentations on the plant.

When: Saturday, August 28 2004 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm

Where: Allegheny Riverfront Trail between the 7th and 9th Street Bridges near the convention center in downtown Pittsburgh

RSVP: By Tuesday, August 24 to Christine at 412-443-4210 or via e-mail: bkworks@earthlink.net

Exhibit Closing Party: Thursday, September 9, 6-8pm @ 1029 Fifth Avenue.

Annyong Haseyo!

Our work in the forest consists of small flags suspended from over 100 trees in a small valley. We intend to encourage an experience with the landscape and the often overlooked life-cycle relationship that moths have to specific tree’s and places. The flags display detailed images of native moth species. Printed using water based inks on light fabric, each flag depicts an image of a moth, a visual analysis of its dominant color patterns, and the Latin name of its species printed in black. The flags are attatched to trees which sustain the larval form of the depicted moth. The work is intended to disappear over time. The flags will loose their color and the natural materials will slowly begin to decompose.

Poetics The forest moths of Kongju, are a metaphor for spirit.

We Intend to do no harm to this place, we seek to engage a forest community, to instigate and sustain a dialogue. We try to respect the social, ecological and hydrological constraints of the place. Our goal is to create artwork that functions as interface rather than artifact. We seek to compliment human expression through creative inquiry, and to encourage the restoration of human culture in relationship to ecosystems.

Our Study We spent months working with Dr. John Rawlins, studying the moths of S.Korea at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. We were seeking to know and act upon the ecological relationship between trees and moths in the forest.

Details of the Performance

A reading of BREATH by Birago Diop
for the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale
Organized by YATOO, in Gongju, South Korea
Curated by Anke Mellin

Artists

Tim Collins , USA and Reiko Goto, Japan, with,
Soon-im Kim, South Korea, and Shai Zakai, Israel

Place

Gongju Communication Arts College in Kongju, South Korea .
A small wooded mountain valley, with small streams.

Date

August 16, 2004 , the opening of the exhibition and the beginning of the new semester at the university. A classical musical event was planned.

We planned a performance with moths. We carefully prepared a light trap, which would attract but not harm the moths of the forest. We chose this night creature because its life cycle was related to the plants in the forest. The forest was once heavily logged by the Japanese who occupied Korea . Native oaks and pines have returned, amid the introduced species in the area. We felt reading his poem out loud would make an engagement a physical and spiritual interface between people and the forest.

We asked Soon-im Kim and Shai Zakai to join the performance , and translate the poem into their languages . The performance occurred in the Korean, Japanese, Hebrew, and English languages.

At 6 A.M. , on the day of the performance, it was clear that a typhoon was coming.

At 6 P.M , the rain had begun. I asked myself, “Can we still use the light trap?” Moths will never show up in this weather. I did not see the value of the performance without them.

At 8 P.M. , the rain was pouring. The new semester celebration event was already in progress, despite the pouring rain. The audience was captivated by the classical music concert, as the rains poured and the night set in. Soon-im and I spoke to the curator about the rain, we decided with her to cancel the performance. As we walked back to the performance site to tell our friends, the announcer spoke, and Soo-nim screamed, “They just announced our performance.” We started running.

At 9 P.M. , as people started to walk toward us, I had to decide very quickly about the performance. The screen was drenched, and the water was seeping through it. But, the raindrops hit the surface of the light below, and created concentric patterns on the screen. It looked like a well of light and shadow. Then I saw a tiny moth fly into the center of the well, and it stayed there. How could this be possible? I heard hundreds of cicadas singing in the rain. The rain was no longer a problem its rhythm on our bodies and the leaves of the forest let us concentrate and focus. We were ready to begin.

Tim spoke to the audience in a very loud voice, “ Annyong haseyo!” (Hello in Korean.)

He turned and spoke to the forest the same way. We then began to read the poem one by one in Korean, Japanese, Hebrew, and English. Our voices were trembling, the rain was pouring. The words of the poem were fading, the ink was

I expected poison ivy to reflect a mean emotion. The more I learned about the plant, the more I realized it had no meanness or hateful feelings. Toxicodendron is mysterious. Homoeopathists use it for rheumatism, ringworm and other skin disorders, and they consider it to be one of the most useful remedies*. The Japanese uses Toxicodendron to produce a lacquer called Urushi. The Golden Pavillion (Kinkaku0ji Temple) in Kyoto, is undercoated with black Urushi paint. Its surface has the smoothness and texture that is perfect for the application of gold leaf. I asked Dr. John Rawlins, and entomologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, about the relationship between insects and poison ivy. He said,

“We have three species of moths here in Western Pennsylvania that ONLY FEED ON THE LEAVES OF POISON IVY. Specifically, they are Eutelia pulcherrima , Marathysa basalis , and Paectes oculatrix .”

Poison ivy reminds me to respect nature. Human are a part of nature, but nature doesn’t benefit only humans. Toxicodendron is common in urban landscapes. I noticed that people often don’t know much about common things. I would like to spend time with common plants and creatures which people don’t know much about. Someday, I would like to live closer to their world than to our human world.

There is not a specific reason why the species has become nearly instinct, but several factors have contributed to the species’ problems.

• In general, people had a misconception about swamps. For example, they thought that swamps were filled with poisonous snakes and disease-carrying insects, that humidity and heat were too oppressive for humans.

• Surrounding the swamps, the forestry industry obtained valuable trees: Sweetgum ( Liquidambar stryractiflua ), Bald cypress ( Taxodium distichum ), and various oaks ( Quercus sp. ) People cut not only these trees but also demolished the entire environment.

• Early forestry practices encouraged ridding forests, woodlands, and swamps of useless or unproductive species, especially of dead, sick, or damaged trees. It was believed that such trees would merely encourage insects and disease that would, in turn, infect healthy trees if left standing.

• A large insect-eating bird with a socialized feeding technique needs a lot of space. A pair of ivory-billed woodpeckers, for example, needed three square miles or even more to meet its needs. Destroying the swamps began taking the birds habitat away.

• In the heyday of museum collecting, specimens were to be taken at all cost. Rarity or the possibility of extinction only made the last specimens all the more valuable.

A small population survived in Cuba. In 1986 a group of ornithologists searching portions of eastern Cuba found three ivory-bills. The Cuba government responded immediately with appropriate protective measures.

Alexander Wilson, 1766-1813, the author of the first American ornithology which was illustrated with plates, engraved and colored from original drawings taken from nature. Wilson describes ivory-billed woodpecker, “This majestic and formidable species, in strength and magnitude, stands at the head of the whole class of Woodpecker hitherto discovered. He may be called the king or child of his tribe; and nature seems to have designed him a distinguished characteristic in the superb carmine crest.”

In the swamps of North Carolina, Wilson captures a member of this species, and decides to keep it alive to use as a model for his drawing. The bird is inconsolable, however, and its screams in captivity “exactly resemble the violence crying of a young child.” Carrying his miniature captive “under cover,” Wilson soon arrives at Wilmington, North Carolina. As he enters town, the bird’s “affecting cries surprised everyone within hearing particularly the females, who hurried to the doors and windows with looks of alarm and anxiety” (Ornithology, Jardian, 2:13). When Wilson arrives at his “hotel,” the landlord, “alarmed at what he heard, asked whether he could furnish me with accommodations for myself and my baby.” The American ornithologist quickly relieves everyone’s anxiety: he produces his “baby,” withdrawing the bird “from under the cover,” while “a general laugh (takes) place.” But the ivory-billed woodpecker himself comes to a less-than-humorous end. Left in Wilson’s hotel room, the woodpecker wreaks havoc, breaking a fifteen-inch hole through the wall, covering the bed with plaster and nearly escaping. Wilson tries tying the bird to a mahogany table—upon which it likewise “wreaked his whole vengeance,” nearly destroying it. While he was taking drawings of the woodpecker, Wilson reports, the bird “cut me severely in several places” and “displayed such a noble and unconquerable sprit that I was frequently tempted to restore him to his native woods…

A six square mile watershed

This was the first of two artist led research projects that focused upon the values that shape the human relationship to a large scale post-industrial landscape ecosystem. Working over a period of three years, theories about aesthetics, ecological recovery, and radical approaches to art, planning, and design were developed and tested through art practice. Three artists and an attorney worked with scientists, citizens and the City of Pittsburgh to agree a concept development plan for the eco-aesthetic recovery of small river valley, and an extension of a public park.

For more information, please see the Nine Mile Run Project Website