Publication Date: Apr 2021
RRP: $49.95
ISBN: 9781922464422
Format: Hardback
Size: 160mm x 240mm
Pages: 176
Category: Environment, MUMA

Tree Story

Edited by Charlotte Day, Melissa Ratliff, Brook Garru Andrew, Sissy Eileen Austin, Carolyn Briggs, Vanessa I. Cavanagh, Madeleine Collie, Brian Martin and Suzanne Simard

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Tree Story brings together creative practices from around the world to create a ‘forest’ of ideas relating to critical environmental and sustainability issues. At its foundation—or roots—are Indigenous ways of knowing and a recognition of trees as our ancestors and family. Produced to accompany a major international group exhibition and podcast, the reader connects tree stories across time and place.
Featuring varied contributions from thirty-three exhibiting artists and projects in a fully illustrated colour section—ranging from early 1970s environmental actions to plant communications—Tree Story includes newly commissioned and republished texts from artists, activists, ecologists, scholars, curators and authors that foreground First Nations’ knowledges, reflect on the rights and agency of trees, explore notions of cultural heritage, reveal knowledge of tree networks and consider loss in times of climate emergency.
Together, the diverse contributions in Tree Story pose the question: what can we learn from trees and the importance of Country?

Design: Stuart Geddes and Žiga Testen

Artists:

Brook Garru Andrew (AU), Yto Barrada (FR/MA), Berdaguer & Péjus (FR), Joseph Beuys (DE), Tania Bruguera (CU), Hayley Panangka Coulthard (AU), Nici Cumpston (AU), Agnes Denes (HU/US), Yanni Florence (AU), Ceal Floyer (UK), Nicole Foreshew (AU), Henrik Håkansson (SE/DE), Beth Mbitjana Inkamala (AU), Judith Pungarta Inkamala (AU), Tim Johnson (AU), Reena Saini Kallat (IN), Peter Kennedy (AU), Olga Kisseleva (FR), Janet Laurence (AU), MAIX Reserved Forest (MY), Brian Martin (AU), Kent Morris (AU), Peter Mungkuri OAM (AU), Optronics Kinetics (AU), Uriel Orlow (CH/UK), Jill Orr (AU), Katie Paterson (UK), Ed Ruscha (US), Yasmin Smith (AU), Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (BR/ES), Stelarc (AU), Linda Tegg (AU) and The Tree School.


Charlotte Day

Charlotte Day is Associate Director, Art Museums at the University of Melbourne. She has extensive curatorial and arts management experience having worked in contemporary art organisations including the Monash University Museum of Art, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Centre...
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Melissa Ratliff

Melissa Ratliff is Curator Research at Monash University Museum of Art. She has worked independently and institutionally on exhibition, public programming, publication and editorial projects, including at the Biennale of Sydney (2015–18), Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg (2013–14), dOCUMENTA (13)...
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Brook Garru Andrew

Brook Garru Andrew is an artist and scholar of Wiradjuri, Ngunnawal and Celtic descent whose interdisciplinary practice explores the legacies of colonisation and modernism. The artistic director of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), his work has been exhibited widely...
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Sissy Eileen Austin

Sissy Eileen Austin is a Gunditjmara Keerraay Woorroong Djab Wurrung woman and former member of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, a group which was established as the elected voice for Aboriginal people and communities towards Treaty discussions.
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Carolyn Briggs

N’arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM is a Boon Wurrung senior elder and is the chairperson and founder of the Boon Wurrung Foundation. She has been involved in developing and supporting opportunities for Indigenous youth and Boon Wurrung culture for over...
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Vanessa I. Cavanagh

Vanessa I. Cavanagh is a Bundjalung and Wonnarua woman from New South Wales who works in the School of Geography and Sustainable Communities at the University of Wollongong as an Associate Lecturer. Her research engages with Aboriginal women and cultural...
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Madeleine Collie

Madeleine Collie is an artist and curator based between Folkestone, UK, and Melbourne/Naarm, Australia. Her work takes the form of curatorial projects, institutional critique, pedagogy, performance and poetic practice. She is Curator and Director of Custom Food Lab. From 2016...
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Brian Martin

Brian Martin is Monash University Art Design & Architecture’s inaugural Associate Dean, Indigenous. A descendant of the Bundjalung, Muruwari and Kamilaroi peoples, he has been a practising artist for thirty years and has exhibited both nationally and internationally in the...
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Suzanne Simard

Suzanne Simard is a Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia who is known for her work on how trees interact and communicate using below-ground fungal networks. She is the founder of the British Columbia–based Mother Tree Project...
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