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2024 The Tale of the Norway Spruce and the Bark Beetle: Ecological Crisis and Trauma  


For many, the observable signs of climate change are warmer winters and hotter summers. Many people feel they can hide from the 'weather' in the safety of their homes and gardens, and as long as the big environmental problems stay away, their private lives are unaffected.  As long as they are not affected in ways they never dreamed possible.

 
I.

According to the literature, the ecological crisis is not felt slowly, with the gradual disappearance of flora and fauna, but in waves, with the disappearance of certain species, plants, and the appearance of other plants, insects, and species, which signal the problem.

 Spruce trees have been dying out en masse in Europe since 2014. The problem is caused by the spreading of spruce bark beetles. Spruce is a tree species typical of the mountains, and in Switzerland and Germany the disappearance of pine forests is already causing serious damage. The spruce bark beetle appeared in 2018 in Hungary, near Sopron. Its spread is similar to the spread of infections, attacking weakened trees then spreading until the tree is completely dead.

The summer of 2022 was extremely dry in Hungary, with Gellért Hill already spectacularly brownish yellowish in July, as if the trees were already looking forward to the rest of the summer with their canopies already leaning into autumn. Water courses are typical under the mountain, but as the roots of the pines run close to the surface, they cannot get water from the deeper layers of the soil. While the majority of the trees have survived the summer drought of 2022, the spruce's immune system was fatally weakened. The weakened trees, while still trying to eliminate the beetles with their resin, were no longer strong enough to produce sufficient amounts of resin. The insects piercing through their bark blocked their vascular systems. The lush green pines had been dying quietly, gracefully, almost imperceptibly for more than a year. Only the needles falling a little more heavily than usual and the resin, indicated to the discerning eye that trouble was afoot. Hikers or garden owners were unaware. By September 2023, when was clear that all was not well, the trees were already dead. People watched helplessly as they dried up and turned brown in two months. 

Spruce is not a typical plant of low-lying areas. Nostalgia for the parts of the country annexed after the Treaty of Trianon may have contributed to the large number of ornamental plants planted in gardens and wooded areas. On the Gellért Hill, once home to vineyards, it was remarkably overplanted in many gardens. The devastation caused by the spruce bark beetle has left a similar spectacular deficit as the phylloxera, which destroyed the vine yards. In many places the trees have already been felled. By the end of the decade, spruce will probably have completely disappeared from the mountain and from the country.


II.

Starting from a garden, the international artists' exhibition investigates the phenomenon of traumatic loss and disappearance of a well-known species, affecting local residents personally, as well as the problem of ecological change in general in a local, regional context. 

The exhibition grew from the photographs by Ania Jopp and a video work by Manuel F. Contreras, taken during the felling of trees in a garden in Gellért Hill with tree care professionals and in the Mátra. The artists found significant that the loss of the trees cannot be viewed neutrally. The personal trauma, which is happening in a tangible way here and now, points towards a collective trauma, which in the case of the spruce trees means the very near future.

The municipality lists the trees on Gellért Hill as protected, and all tree felling must be reported. The role of the law protecting trees and green spaces is important, but not flexible. Despite the emergence of many diseased trees, the ecopolicy of the district and the capital are unable to adapt to the dire situation. Instead of providing help and information on how to make up for the lost trees, the felling of trees is preceded by a long process of permits, followed by fines and compulsory replacement. Despite the fact that forestry and tree care professionals have long been organising international conferences on the issue of replacing endangered species. The key issues to be addressed are that of ensuring that new trees are drought-tolerant and at the same time fit into the ecological environment, i.e. that they are not replaced by invasive species. From a societal perspective, the issue lies in the lack of consideration for residents facing financial hardships, many of whom are retirees, and the lack of a cost-effective tree placement solution.

 III.

The research-based exhibition explores the complex ecological, horticultural and social issues related to the extinction of spruce trees. The exhibiting artists' research was supported by experts who gave lectures throughout the semester. The art lectures reviewed literature from the last few years on ecology, including the crucial role of forests, and related exhibitions on the importance of trees in ecosystems. Presentations were given by Márton Nyerges and Balázs Borhy by a complex ecological analysis of the problem of spruce trees and the possibility of replacing them. With Balázs Borhy, during a site-visit, we analysed the miyawaki forest in Tabán and its already functioning ecosystem, as well as the challenges of urban mini-forests on site. Mark Richards showed the importance of green space in the urban environment, not only the role of trees, but also of gardens that have their own microclimate, i.e. are self-sustaining, in the Aurora climate garden.

The importance of the more-than-human is an urging topic of the arts and sciences. The agency of trees has implications for all aspects of human life. They play one of the most spectacular roles in the interconnectedness of air, soil, water, micro-organisms, fungi, birds and animals. The more-than-human agents create a habitable environment for humans. Just as air is a complex, constantly flowing 'vibrant matter' (Jane Bennett), produced by the breathing in and out of trees and vegetation, micro-organisms, fungi and fauna, and humans, water also enables life in a similar flow through everything living. Their interconnectedness is also crucial in urban environments and parks. The agency of a small urban forest multiplies the agency of the trees and plants it contains. 

Bruno Latour's last book calls for a new ecological class. 

The research and the artworks, photos, video works, data visualisation, round table discussions and guided walks explore these issues and try to show strategies for solutions.


Curators
Tünde Varga,  Keszegh Ágnes

Contributors
Márton Nyerges, tree care specialist
Mark Richards, Auróra Climate Garden 
Iván András Bojár, 10 million trees project

Graphic designer 
Zoltán Visnyai

Photos by
Julianna Nyíri

On view
31 August – 13 September, 2024
Budapest, 1111. Kende u. 1.
 


Georg Winter  (DE)



Christmas Stump
permanent performance
1992–

In Christian cultures, the Christmas tree (fir or spruce) usually stands in the home from 23 December to Three Kings (6 January). It dries out over this period and serves as a holder for Christmas baubles, candles, etc. 

For reasons of assimilation, my family has been hanging this tree from the ceiling with the top pointing downwards during this period since 1992 until now (2024). This keeps it moist for longer. Having a Christmas tree in the home is standard here (southern Germany). With the transreligious translation and rotation, the tree remains in the room for longer and is then sawn off about 15 centimetres from the top together with the hook. The result is the Christmas stump, which then hangs from the ceiling throughout the year as a reminder of the tree. We have had and collected 32 Christmas stumps over the years. 




Danny Foley (IR)


 
#1 Treading Lightly
mixed media, canvas
2024

#2 Shrouding
mixed media, canvas
2024

#3 I Lay Stretched Between Grounds
mixed media, canvas
2024

Foley was inspired by the vast amount of pine tree stumps he witnessed on a site visit to a Garden in Kelenhegyi út and around Gellért Hill. It was there that he was informed him and other Erasmus students about the mass decline of pine trees in Hungary and other neighbouring countries. Due to factors such as climate change and not being indigenous to the land, the trees are prematurely dying in large numbers and this outcome has resulted in their inevitable disappearance.

As a personal response to both the site of the stumps and the context of the pine trees on Gellért Hill, Fine Art student Danny Foley created a series of three paintings through a process of gathering source material from the site. By performing and engaging with both the pine tree stumps and the ground they once lived, he utilizes the gathered source material of the experience with the site to infuse his paintings with the presence of the body and the trees. His aim in these paintings is to convey his experience with the site and its context.








Marta Massa (IT) and Yeasir Arafat (BD)





In the Quiet 
Film
 The film In the Quiet by filmmakers Marta Massa and Yeasir Arafat, bring together moments of Danny Foley working in his studio and performing at the site of the pine tree stumps. Massa and Arafat connect visual concepts with examples of human/non-human interactions in public space. The paintings and the film speak of ecological, political and social space. Through the act of physically experiencing different spaces and places where human/non-human interactions occur, the paintings and the film attempt to explore how we coexist with all species and the natural world.




Audette Hyder (SYR)



Once it was
installation
2024

 This work represents the ecological problem related to some types of conifer trees in many regions around the world, in Europe, the Mediterranean basin, and elsewhere...which leads to the death of pine and spruce trees, and the cutting down of infected ones. this work represents the idea of moving from the state of green scene to imbalanced state of scattered elements. using infected spruce logs that represent the environmental problem in general, the green scene is torn, and its elements slip off the canvas and die. ...A forest without trees is no longer a forest...

 


Anna Jopp (PL)




I have never Thought it Could Happen in my Garden….
photo installation The photographs explore the local experience of climate change and document how quietly, almost unnoticeably an ecological disaster can enter our own surroundings. The project started in September 2023 by documenting the dying spruce trees in the garden of Kelenhegyi ut 41 in Budapest, followed by a documentation of the felling of the trees in January 2024 and - finally - photographing the garden nearly one year after the first photos were taken to search for the traces of what it once was. While documenting the issue locally, the photographs aim to explore the distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘our own territory’ and how differently we perceive climate change when it affects our private space. Some of the questions the project asks are, how much of a distant news is climate change? Is it something that happens somewhere else?







Manuel F. Contreras (CO)



The View of the Sea
experimental documentary film


This video is a register of the felling of the spruce trees that took place in January 2023 in the garden of the building located on Kelenhegyi ut 41, in a neighborhood part of the emblematic and affluent Gellért Hill of Budapest. The trees had died as a result of global warming and rising temperatures in the European continent. As the felling progresses the changes in the landscape provide an indication on what is deemed visible, ephemeral and valuable in a contemporary urban settling, in which nature is an artifact of low monetary value in its raw form. All these elements gain a new meaning once the tress' granted long-lasting, faithful and low maintenance characteristics disappear as a result and within the same inconsistent logics of capitalistic problem solving of climate change.  

Van Duursen Luna Elín (NL) and Barbara Subotic (RS)



Archive of Absence
Installation
2023



For the Aurora project, Barbara Subotic and Luna van Duursen made a mural on the wall next to the entrance of the Aurora climate garden, which wraps around the corner of the object, marking the place as something other than an apartment complex, inviting people to look into the garden and question what is behind that wall. The artists used a global mean temperature graph as their primary inspiration, using each brick in the wall as one unit. The colours changed from the darker reds into the lighter reds and blues - based on the proximity to the entrance of the garden, symbolically marking how much impact on temperature can even a small garden like this create.

Guided tour and knowledge sharing – research phase