Amanda Lovlee Holds a Pep Rally for Two Trees at Mass MoCA

Opens Saturday, June 13, 2pm | North Adams, MA

Mass MoCA opens "Homecoming" on June 13, a new outdoor installation by Minneapolis-based artist Amanda Lovlee that will occupy Courtyard A for the next three years. The piece is built around two trees that have been relocated from a warmer climate to the Berkshires as part of an "assisted plant migration project." Which is the scientific practice of moving native, long-lived plants northward ahead of a climate that is warming faster than they can migrate on their own.

The two trees are both red oaks: one from the southeastern United States, one from the local region. They've been placed in proximity in city planters so they can communicate through the exchange of organic compounds, a form of interspecies conversation that plants conduct continuously and that humans rarely think about. Central to the installation are custom-designed bleachers facing the two trees, built for sitting and watching them grow, an invitation to attend to a much slower time scale.

The opening program on June 13 at 2pm is called "Pep Rally for the Trees"—a participatory event that sets the tone for how Lovlee intends the residency to unfold. The project was developed with plant scientist, artist, and educator Jessica Gersony and the PLACE Lab at Smith College (PLant physiology, Art, and Community Engagement), which grounds the work in some actual plant biology. Lovlee is a Cultural Policy Fellow at Stanford University and founding member of CAIR Lab, and has previously worked with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the NYC Parks Department, and the California Office of Land Use and Innovation on large-scale public art projects at the intersection of science and civic engagement.

Mass MoCA, 1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams, MA. More at massmoca.org.