Arterial Forest
The extraction and burning of fossil fuels cause eerily parallel harm to trees and humans. While extinction threatens one in six tree species in the continental U.S., one in six human deaths are directly traceable to pollution. Since trees clean the air and are vital to human health, these crises are inextricable. In response, this project is a tactile interweaving of corporeal and ecological bodies.
Each weaving in Arterial Forest depicts a tree from a species endangered by human-caused ecological destruction. I photograph living examples of these trees, from which I create silhouettes to hand-weave on a digital jacquard loom. The woven trees are portrayed upside-down to resemble lungs, arteries, and roots—all parts of usually invisible, life-enabling circulatory systems. Woven partially from petrochemical-derived monofilament, the rematerialized trees embody connections between extraction, illness, species loss, and the buildup of plastics in our bodies and ecosystems.
Two other types of textiles inform scale and color, connecting these woven forms simultaneously to practices of grieving and care. Their size—closer to that of a human body than to a full-grown tree—recalls shrouds. Materially, they also share qualities with gauze, another white, semi-transparent cotton cloth used for wound care.