castaway / for the trees
recycled salvaged cardboard, fallen pitch pine, oak, Tyvek, boat parts (2022)
Constructed of cardboard salvaged from the museum’s daily operations, wood glue, and remilled wood from recently fallen trees, this sculpture references the catboat, an iconic New England leisure craft. First used for fishing, the catboat can trace its lines to boatbuilding workshops that constructed early whaling ships and workboats and then turned their attention to leisure boats with the rise of the middle-class in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
“...for the trees” (2022) is a sculptural installation and proposed series of public talks I organized for the Heritage Museum & Gardens in Cape Cod, MA investigating the history of forests, deforestation, reforestation, and contemporary waste and materials recycling practices on Cape Cod. Taking its starting point from the history of deforestation on the Cape, which saw a near total depletion of once-lush native forests within the first hundred years of European colonization for the building of whaling and fishing fleets, early industry, and homesteads, for the Trees presents a poetic reading of the current use of recyclable cardboard and paper as part of global supply chain operations and asks both, “what is missing” and “what can we still preserve?”
Connecting the omnipresent glut of cardboard shipping boxes from online retailers, the history of change and deforestation and reforestation on the Cape as early forms of globalized industry, and contemporary recycling and supply chain challenges, “...for the trees'' becomes a backdrop for public conversation and reflection. As the common cardboard box is the most used packaging for e-commerce deliveries, it is also the biggest manufactured product in the U.S. waste stream – averaging over 30 million tons a year. The piece also mines the rich terrain of what philosopher Glenn Albrecht has termed "solastalgia" – a form of environmental “homesickness” – caused by rapidly changing climate, landscape, and ecosystems observable over the span of a human lifetime. Solastalgia goes beyond nostalgia for what a place once was or could have been. Missing from the title is the word “Forest,” and the piece questions what else might be missing, and what we might do to conserve, restore, and prevent further loss.
Exhibited in: Treasured Trash at Heritage Gardens & Museum, Cape Cod, MA
Inside the Heritage Museum’s collection.