Sophia Hermann, “Divergent Fates”
Mentor: Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Art & Design

Divergent Fates is a continued project that builds on Professor Kaganovich’s long standing research interests in materiality, ecology, and human impact on the environment. The focus of the research is on the ways in which trees are modified by humans. The project has involved a wide range of exploration of possible fates for trees and the ways these fates can reinterpret one another. It asks questions like “can paper become a log again” and “How would a tree interpret being a chair” and answers these questions through a wide range of methods. The research includes developing and adapting new processes for realizing these answers. Some example processes include building custom machines for reverse engineering logs out of paper and developing multiyear aggressive grafting routines for bending and grafting trees into living chairs. These speculative objects have been in a multitude of shows, and the living chairs are currently growing at the Lyndon Sculpture Garden.