ARBOREAL(ITY)
with J. Morgan Puett / Trevor Tochydlowski / Julian Maza / Jennifer Coates / Laura Silverman / Gabrielle Schaub / others to be announced
July 17 through 30
With thousands of years of coevolution and creative emergence, it might’ve been different here now – but because of centuries of dominant cultural neglect for the nonhuman world, the Northeastern Deciduous Forests are in trouble. The Ash trees are dead, the Hemlocks are dying, and Maples are next to fall to fast-spreading diseases linked to climate change.
ARBOREAL(ITY) is a study into the possibilities of collaborating with the forest of Mildred's Lane, while navigating numerous challenges to its sustainability, not least as the Ash and Hemlock trees — two of the land’s principal populations — quickly succumb to pestilent insect species. This July and August, we will bring together foresters, conservationists, and artists to envision and reconsider the meanings of a landscape’s lifespan and legacy. We will be joined by Trevor Tochydlowski of the Wayne County Conservation District, and Julian Maza of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, among other experts. This swarming will include a Social Saturday on July 22.
This swarming initiates a new project, WORKING (Withering) WILDS, conceived by 2023 Land-Steward-in-Residence J. Morgan Puett. It is a new emergent collaboration with the non-human community of Mildred's Lane. The ‘collaborative’ is too vast to list here. They are hidden, overlooked, and yet to be identified through experience. An old Lenape Trail in the woods holds biological and ghostly secrets and stories that emerge from direct engagement. The collaborative observes and intersects with the labors of the forest. A factory in the forest – mending, infusing, melting. Emergent possibilities include trees, insects, birds, mammals, rocks, streams, earth, and microscopic beings. An ecological collective becoming, awakening senses for those who enter and readdressing our understanding of nature and landscape by escaping the rooted behaviors of the Capitalocene and Anthropocene.
For more information on this swarming, email workstyles@mildredslane.com.
The woods surrounding Mildred’s Lane. Video courtesy of Erik Freeland.
