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© 2024

2024 Tales of the Norway Spruce and of Other Trees in Time of Ecological Crisis


The exhibition of international and Hungarian artists began in a garden in Budapest examining the issues surrounding the decline of a well-known tree species, the Norway spruce. The exhibition began with a "tale": the story of the spruce and the bark beetle. The Spruce will soon disappear from the region due to climate change (with which the beetle entered the region). This disappearance will be followed by several related issues, e.g. what species can replace them without interfering the local flora or fauna, who will cover the expenses of tree supplementation, how the less privileged layer of society will suffer the loss, what emotional response do people give to the loss of their beloved natural surrounding with the loss.

 
The first part of the exhibition focused on the disappearance of trees in the local context, particularly in Budapest. The current exhibition is framed by two tales and several stories, all of which extend beyond national borders and are often personal, drawn from the artists' experiences, memories, historical knowledge, or activism. Extending the local, Eastern European context, this exhibition presents the complex ecological, horticultural, and social contexts of tree decay and/or preservation, that shed light on contemporary issues of the human and the non-human through the artists' playful-critical works. At the same time, the research-based exhibition presents local activist-experimental examples that provide models for new tree-replacement strategies or urban opportunities for creating functioning ecosystems. 

The importance of the more-than-human dimension is increasingly being recognized in the arts, connecting divergent disciplines. The agency of trees has far-reaching implications for human life. They play a prominent role in the interconnected systems of air, soil, water, microorganisms, fungi, birds, and animals. Trans-human agents, inextricably linked, create a human-habitable environment. Water, like air, is a complex, constantly flowing 'vibrant matter' (Jane Bennett) created by the breathing in and out of trees and vegetation, microorganisms, fungi and fauna, and humans. Trees play an important role in this flow, not only forests but also in cities and parks, where their interconnectedness and activity are critical. The agency of a small urban forest or climate garden's multiplies that of the trees and plants within it. 

It is of vital importance how we reframe our narratives of nature and the natural world for our common future. 





 Curators
Tünde Varga


Curator assistents
Laura Pass
Kira Ferenczi
Juilanna Hemrik
Imola Sudár
Barbara Faragó
Anna Zsibrita  

Graphic designer 
Zoltán Visnyai

Photos by
Julianna Nyíri, Máté Kázsmér

On view
17 October  – 30 October, 2024.
Open Gallery, CEU, Budapest
 


Zahra Fuladvand (IR)



Human-Tree Performance
2024
8 minutes
Performer: Reka Dorner



 When I observe trees in my daily life, they seem to always be there—outside my window, like silent witnesses to the changing seasons. I watch them patiently standing, reaching towards the light and sky, yet deeply anchored in the soil beneath them. There’s a calmness in their presence, a steadfastness that’s both grounding and inspiring. But as humans, how often do we stop to think about the trees? Do we realize the impact we have on them? We use wooden furniture without a second thought, but how many of us actually pause to consider where that wood comes from? Take the example of the endangered rosewood, which is often used in musical instruments and furniture. This beautiful wood is disappearing from our world because of over-harvesting, and yet many of us remain unaware.

In this performance, I aim to explore this unsettling imbalance. Trees are such vital and essential parts of life, yet we continue to cut them down in the name of progress and profit. It’s a strange paradox—on one hand, they give us so much, and on the other, we continue to destroy them.



Clarissa Butelli (BRA)


 
Diario Oceanico (Maritime Standard) 
2024
mixed media installation
Diario Oceanico is an investigation into narratives and the role of graphic design as their conveyor and supporter. The three editions on display explore themes from the 15th-century South American colonization process and their long-term consequences. Brazilwood, wild fauna specimens, and native peoples were listed as cargo in what is considered one of the first economic documents in Brazilian history: the Bretoa Ship logbook. These commodified goods are the starting point for this visual study on international trade and the production cycles of goods and information.



Mária Chilf (HU)





The Tale of the Seedling
2024
photo installation


The Tale of the Seedling presents the progress of four spruce seedling from a whole colony of little brothers and sisters. Four tiny saplings were brought from the Mures valley to Nagymaros. From the cool and damp coniferous forest to Lili's garden.  The little seedlings were uproted from the leaves of needles, decaying wood, resin, moss, pitch and thyme, mushrooms, raspberries whose scent evaporated into the intoxicating, luscious, unmistakable scent of the pine forest. The absence of the indescribable fragrance hurt the four trees the most in their new home. 

The photos and the Tale show how uprooting can affect both trees and humans and how non-invasive respect of nature wins over. 
The Tale of the Seedling


The whole colony of little brothers and sisters was bathed in dew that morning, when Lili selected four little brothers and sisters and removed them from their companions. Leaves of needles, decaying wood, resin, moss, pitch and thyme, mushrooms, raspberries, and who knows what else evaporated into the intoxicating, luscious, unmistakable scent of the pine forest. The absence of this indescribable fragrance hurt the four trees the most. 

Four tiny saplings were brought from the Mures valley to Nagymaros. From the cool and damp coniferous forest to Lili's garden. Three of them took root at the garden's end, while the fourth grew along the house's side. The only thing the two villages had in common was the name Maros; the altitude, humidity, temperature, and smells were all very different. 

Lili's joy was tinged with guilt for uprooting her pets from their ancestral home, a feeling exacerbated years later when she read about the secret life of trees. 

In twenty-five years, the four little seedlings had grown into a wolfish pine tree, alongside cherry, apple, walnut, pear, and, eventually, fig trees. 

Lili's stood dumbfounded one spring morning, during the wet season, when she saw her favorite trees' bark torn off, torn and torn, lying in shavings on the ground. The majestic trees stood skinned and humiliated. 

Lili was concerned for many years that someone in her Christmas garden would cut down her growing pines, as her neighbour had done. When they were older and out of danger, a deer from the nearby woods killed them. The resin dripped, unstoppable. Lili coated them in wood polish, wrapped them in a bundle, and fenced them in. The tree next to the house, stripped to the waist, stood no chance of survival. 

The following winter, in a massive storm, two of the three broke and fell. Their enormous bodies blocked roads and gardens. The third is still standing, but Lili is afraid to open the harness to see if the wound has grown too large or if the bark beetle has carved it. 

The moth spreads in areas where spruce trees are not native. Pine trees are drying up across the country. When Lili returned to her four children's birthplace early this autumn, she quickly resisted the temptation to replant more saplings. She simply walked around the forest, smelling the scents and noses and taking photos. Pine stumps and dried trees. Because, despite foresters' efforts to stigmatize and remove diseased trees, the bark beetle persists. The locals blame climate change.




Erekle Chinchilakashvili (GE)



Prayer of The One Who Is Afraid in The Forest
2024
mixed media installation



 What is the desire making us want to change and modify, cut and paste, and re-cut and re-paste? What is this struggle to co-exist with already existing? Co-existence could not be endured on the terms of the environment - this was so absurdly human. The air was too moist, the rain was too wet, and the forest was too dark and he was afraid of the forest. He was scared of himself and his fears and he wanted to cover these up… So much flatness, so much emptiness... 

Chinchilakashvili prayer-tale points at the power of nature to reflect and at the same time absorb human fears of detachment.



 


Gosztola Kitti (HU)




Flashforward
2019

Cephalus and Procris (heliogravür, 36 x 26 cm)
Actaeon and Artemis (heliogravür, 38 x 26 cm)

The heliogravure prints are the reproductions of works by the Flemish landscape painter Denis van Alsloot adapt mythological scenes that were originally set in forests but no longer have trees. Actaeon stares at Artemis bathing with her nymphs, and in retaliation, the goddess transforms the hunter into a stag, which is ripped apart by his own baying dogs. In the equally tragic story of Cephalus, he is pursued on his hunt by his jealous wife, Procris, whom he mortally wounds after mistaking her for an animal. The tragic nature of the reproductions is tempered by a touch of irony, for not only does the composition fail, but so does the narrative in these stories of hunters, who are deprived of the forest - in the bleak, desolate landscape, spying on someone becomes absurd. Reproduction, fragmentation, and absence: the eroding pattern of memories passed down to descendants through successive periods. Gosztola Kitti selects and rearranges historical finds with an assured hand, their peculiar constellations serving as both quotations and prophecies.







Daniela Jauregui (MEX)



Reforestation through Culture and Consciousness
photo installation


The reforestation process should begin in people's minds in order to raise awareness of the social and environmental issues we face today. It entails understanding that living beings are more than just humans, and that a tree, in particular, is an entity that feels and tells stories over time... 

Native tree species have become endangered in the Mayan jungle of Quintana Roo, Mexico, a city that is constantly growing. Playa del Carmen has become the city with the fastest rate of population growth in America in the recent years. 

The Living Museum of Native Trees project, led by the Moce Yax Yuxtal association, has undertaken the task of creating a circuit that identifies the last examples of native city trees, grandparent trees that tell us their story, their connection to the Mayan worldview, their biology and environmental importance, and allow us to understand how they have survived the whirlwind of urban life and modernity.

 

Ania Jopp (PL)



Archive of Absence
photo installation






1. Interview with Mark Richards
(pdf text on screen)

Ania Jopp’s in depth interview with Mark Richards, Auróra Climate Garden’s founder talks about the long term impact of urban “reforestation” in an illustrated interview with Ania Jopp.
→ Read the interview

2. Invisibilized/ Noticeable Absence
(photos)

The photographs document the quiet death of spruce trees in the Matra mountains and the Pannonhalma arboretum. The impact of climate change on the trees has been visible in the forests for years now, but remained a distant, somewhat hidden problem to many, whether it’s a solitary dying tree against the green backdrop of unaffected trees or hectares of dead spruce forests.


Hanan Saif (SY)



Tree
2024 
video installation
3’33 minutes


On the most beautiful canal in Leiden, the Rapenburg, lies the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands. The Hortis botanicus Leiden was found in 1590 by the University of Leiden and established in 1594 by Carolus Clusius (1526–1609) as a garden for education and research.

The video capture those fleeting moments, where the natural world and its reflected counterpart coexist, blurring the line between what is seen and unseen. Each frame invites contemplation of the hidden layers of the world around us, reminding us that our perception of reality is shaped as much by what we don’t see as by what we do.