Not yet trees


 it was nice speaking to Johan yesterday he has a strange calming effect on me.  I'm enjoying the tree project and having the two strands of doing something a bit arty as an intervention Point de Caption quilting point and doing something practical like making a documentary carves out a little space for me. I was a bit sad you didn't listen when I suggested we went to Betty Kennys tree. I think you thought I was joking or talking nonsense but I think a few pilgrimages to specific trees of note would be good for us - it would as Sarah Trueman says queer the trail.  I was taken by the story of Artuads staff of Jesus and the st Patrick that he tried to return to Ireland and started thinking about sticks and staffs and how once they are in the hand they are more human than treelike. 

The project in the school seems to be evolving, I really like the idea of thinking about growth and time and planting.  I want to push for some large dead tree trunks to be delivered - this will start to produce habitats, create a landscape and be nice and symbolic in relations to cycles and renewals.  It may also interestingly hold the carbon on the surface of the planet a little longer. 

So this was a good week for trees I think.  I wonder if we were to write something about trees what would it be and where would it start ? I havn't really got that far yet but it might be interesting to think about it like the kernel of an idea.  One thing that strikes me is the strange way we do not talk of wood and timber and paper and pulp and the way trees are processed.  We talk a lot about trees as providing something for humans but then we try and bring in a more than human perspective that we don't really bring in.  We also have and this may not be quite right a feeling of the natural and the good which pervades conversations which in some ways needs a good kicking by proper eco-feminist new materialism which in the end is part of what it was invented for.  There is not enought here for a paper but there is a rumbling of some thoughts.

Comments

  1. Kate PahlFebruary 9, 2022 at 1:01 AM

    I like these thoughts. Let's take the team to Betty Kenny's tree in the summer - the Sheffield and Manchester people. I have been wondering abut why post humanism and new materialism both does and does not work with the tree project. it is both blindingly obvious that trees are not human but also interesting how human trees are as well. I think we should write something about that and include the children's thoughts.

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