I have just come across this current exhibition of trees at the Monash University Museum of Art entitled Tree Story. I do not know much about the exhibition, or the narrative that is implied in the word 'story'. The information on the MUMA website is very minimal. It says that the exhibition's:
"creative practices "create a ‘forest’ of ideas relating to critical environmental and sustainability issues. At its foundation—or roots—are Indigenous ways of knowing and a recognition of trees as our ancestors and family...Tree Story takes inspiration from the underground networks, information sharing and mutual support understood to exist within tree communities, and poses the question: what can we learn from trees and the importance of Country?"
There are no links to the Tree Story podcast, or to The Tree School publication on the website. So we don't have access to the fleshing out of the above ideas by the curators. This minimal online approach to an exhibition is standard art gallery practice .The art galleries continue to assume that exhibitions are about people physically visiting the gallery, even after a year of living with the Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions on people movement.
Does the use of 'school' suggest that trees have the capacity to learn? Or does tree school refer to a place where people can gather for communal learning and the production of knowledge grounded in lived experience and connection to communities? I have no idea.
From a recent poodlewalk in January 2021:
It is roadside vegetation along
Baum Rd in Waitpinga. Sadly this vegetation is not regenerating, and the strip of roadside vegetation along this road is gradually lessening as the plants and trees slowly continue to die. This is common in this part of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. There is no caring for this roadside vegetation.
The macro photo below was made on a recent, early morning poodlewalk with Kayla along Depledge Road in Waitpinga on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. It was sometime during the 2020 Xmas/New Year period.
I have generally been walking along the back country road in the morning or afternoon to avoid the strong, gusty coastal winds; or for some shade from the late afternoon summer sun. The rhizomes photography has been rather limited this summer.
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This branch of a pink gum ( Eucalyptus fasciculosa) is in the local bushland in Waitpinga adjacent to Depledge Rd on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia.
The picture was made in the early morning in mid-Spring (ie., October) about 15 minutes after sunrise. I often walk down Depledge Rd on a poodlewalk to avoid the strong, south-westerly winds off the southern ocean. The bush on the west side of the road provides us with protection from the wind.
It has been a cold, wet, windy, spring so far. We have had so much rain along the southern coast fo the Fleurieu Peninsula. However, there were a few days of fine weather between the days of steady rain in early October, and so we were able to wander around the local bushland in Waitpinga.
This picture was made in the early morning inbetween the rains sweeping across the coast:
It is a grounded branch of a pink gum in local bushland in Waitpinga. The tree is growing along the ground.
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