More thoughts on the Tree Undone..

The act of unraveling a knitted object is viscerally satisfying; it’s hard to resist pulling a lose string on a sweater, just to see it unwind, and to feel the vibration of the yarn in your fingertips as the yarn pulls against itself, resisting being undone. This piece will tempt the participants with an urge that conflicts with their appreciation of the object itself. They will observe within themselves the desire to both preserve and destroy an object at the same time. Ultimately, the mischievous impulse to pull the loose strands will win.

This tree will challenge the participants of Burning Man to take part in what seems to be the destruction of a beautiful object, and to undo the tedious, time consuming and arduous work of the artists. Early in the week, the tree will stand with its branches full of leaves crocheted or knitted out of yarn. It will be a marvelous accomplishment of detailed handiwork. But every leaf will be left ‘unfinished’, that is, not tied off, so that participants may pull the end of the strand, unraveling the leaf.

As the week goes on, and many participants have unraveled a leaf or two, the participants will see a different art object emerge. Instead of a full tree of plush leaves made of yarn, they will see a bare tree with the many, many strands of yarn hanging from the branches, where the leaves once were. The visual impact will be evocative of a time-lapsed photograph of leaves falling to the ground, leaving streaks of color that reference the leaf’s downward path. These strands will sway and tangle in the playa breeze, in a mournful, sweeping motion, like the branches of a weeping willow. They will remind us of the beautiful leaves that no longer exist.

Throughout history, cultures have fixated on the transcendence of earthly existence.  As death and decay threaten to take from us everything we love and hold as true, permanence becomes divine.  Time is most precious to us, and that which endures transcends our deepest fear: the deterioration of the body.  But out of this fear, humanity has found it’s greatest gift: the urge to create.  Rather than give in to inevitable death and decay, we have decided as a species to contribute, to connect with each other and to share our experiences of our time together.

But we cannot contribute to humanity without taking part in a cycle of growth and decay.  We do not wish to destroy.  Yet, as we witness the impact of our actions upon the environment, it could be said that everything we do is essentially our undoing. Although our innermost culturally instilled ethics may deny it, it is impossible to separate creation and consumption from destruction, even in the cases of endeavors we hold in great esteem, like the creation of artwork.

Every action of creation is also an act of destruction. Every act of destruction is also an act of creation. This tree will require the participants to take part in this inseparable dichotomy, and compel them to find some peace and acceptance of all the tree’s states.