Sophie Rickert, Anthony Zelazoski and Abigail Tran “Crafting Balance: The Intersection of Nature, Materiality, and Process”
Mentor: Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Art & Design, Arts (Peck School of the)
Poster #30
The intertwined nature of these two projects traces back to 2019 with Divergent Fates: Tree Intuits Chair—a project rooted conceptually in materiality and ecology, and physically in planting and grafting tree saplings into the form of living chairs. Hosted by the Lynden Sculpture Garden through Professor Yevgeniya Kaganovich’s ongoing residency, Divergent Fates naturally led to the inception of Slow Growing in the Time of Trees—a collaborative project focused on cultivating mushrooms within fabricated, upcycled plastic forms. With a goal of uniting nature and art through sustainability and science, interdisciplinary research has become essential to the evolution of these works. Recent activities have included site visits to Lynden to trim the growing trees, to document weekly mushroom growth during the active season, and to engage in public events. Meanwhile, studio-based work has focused on fabricating sewn forms from a textile-like material created by layering and ironing plastic bags. Divergent Fates has yielded the discovery that perpendicular tree grafting— visually similar to the crossbars of a ladder, in which the vertical bars are existing trunks—is largely unsuccessful. From this finding, other methods of creating the chairs’ structures, such as shaping and binding existing branches, have come into use by virtue of interdisciplinary research’s critical influence. Slow Growing in the Time of Trees has also presented notable findings including the discovery that the size of the fabricated plastic forms must be limited in scale to achieve successful myceliation. Without the artistic intent behind each of these discoveries and the scientific inquiry necessary to understand both the tree grafting and mushroom cultivation failures, such results might otherwise remain obscure. This interplay between disciplines fosters a broader awareness of the importance of collaboration and sustainability—qualities that are becoming increasingly vital to contemporary society.