entheogen
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©2024 entheogen designassisted migration
assisted migration, 2024
braden perryman
2” x 4” pine panels, plasma cut 16ga steel bracket panel holders, nuts, bolts, prefabricated casters, soil, mulch, and volunteer Acer Palmatum saplings
dimensions: 36” x 36” x 36”
braden perryman
2” x 4” pine panels, plasma cut 16ga steel bracket panel holders, nuts, bolts, prefabricated casters, soil, mulch, and volunteer Acer Palmatum saplings
dimensions: 36” x 36” x 36”
assisted migration recenters our perception of time: trees exist on a timescale several times slower than humans. this artwork will not be complete until their collaborators - the trees they contain - reach maturity, roughly three decades in the future. just as the work requires the passage of time to come to fruition, assisted migration‘s entanglement with living organisms lends it an inevitable expiration date. however, based on the 100+ year lifespan of Acer palmatum, it is probable that the trees will outlive their containers, eventually consuming their constituent parts with probing roots as the wood panels rot and the corten steel panels rust away.
studies have shown that trees are able to communicate with each other and share nutrients via symbiotic relationships with underground mycelial networks in yet another stunning example of non-human intelligence, which we traditionally recognize only in organisms that behave somewhat like us. we often think of plants as unintelligent because unlike animals, they cannot move themselves to avoid situational or environmental hazards - yet indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge reveal that with deep listening, intelligence appears to be universal, reminiscenet of Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story, The Author of the Acacia Seeds.
the work riffs off of the Nina Katchadourian’s, uninvited collaborations with nature, where, without invitation, Katchadourian mends broken spiderwebs with sewing thread. Katchadourian notes, somewhat abashedly, that spiders rarely returned to webs she repaired with thread. this work is also in large part inspired by the eponymous concept of assisted migration, an environmental proposition wherein humans help species find new niches by spreading their seeds in favorable conditions to ensure some semblance of future biodiversity. assisted migration is an uninvited collaboration with nature: already, in forests around the world, tree species’ distribution patterns are, over generations, gradually migrating away from the equator and upwards in elevation to follow their optimal growth conditions as USDA zones shift with climate change. ecologies are emergent and reactive; we bumbling humans are slow to catch up.
though this work takes the concept of assisted migration to an absurd level - it is literally a five-sided planter-bed with wheels enabling trees to be relocated to optimal conditions - it also speaks to the general transience of human society. rather than being rooted to a certain place for generations as we once were, we now tend to relocate more often - this detachment to place contributes to our extractive view of nature - in essence, we see nature only in terms of the benefit that we may derive from it:
(...) if only I could move that shade-tree over to myself instead of having to move myself over to the shade-tree (...)
assisted migration asks of us,
why is it that rather than change our consumption habits, we find it easier to entertain ideas of shifting entire forests?
or relocating entire cities and their inhabitants away from rising sea levels?