About: HeartWood (in progress)
Under the static of social media, AI technology, and rapid social, climate, and economic change, connections between humans and nature (and among different parts of society) have been weakened, fragmented, sundered.
The concept…
We need to align with trees more than ever and go below to the HeartWood. Redwoods are our ancient California guides. They show us how to weather the fire and reemerge thriving. We plan to integrate knowledge from multiple source – the arts, science, indigenous wisdom, and nature’s elements themselves - to (re)gain ways to see disturbances as a generative force.
Heartwood is a multisensory experience that provides both a personal and collective journey to remind participants that we too are interwoven into the fabric of nature.
Heartwood started when I was guiding creative journeys in a burnt redwood valley. For three years, I spent hours holding space for individuals who were contending with their lives and trauma in the site of a natural disturbance - the CZU Lightning Complex fires in Davenport. The blackened redwood trunks were the backdrop for these transformative experiences. It was ideal. The lives of affected people were recovering, just as were the trees surrounding them. The Redwoods were the masters of this process.
Redwood trees, the giants of California, the tallest lifeforms on Earth, have evolved over millennia to the presence of fires. In a fire, redwoods explode thousands of seeds. Once the fire has passed, regeneration occurs in multiple ways. Those seeds become the children sitting at the feet of the mother tree. The mother tree itself -- sometimes hollow, sometimes charred – can slowly come back to life. Slender green shoots can spring upward from the base of mature trees. New foliage begins to repopulate the burnt branches. Redwoods are our ancient California guides. They show us how to weather the fire and reemerge thriving. They can guide our own recovery and healing from trauma. As if to say, ‘This is how you recover. This is how you heal from trauma' - the redwoods lead by example.
In HeartWood, Jodi Lomask, Marcus Maria Jung, and Capacitor come together to tell a very Californian story of climate change, forestry, trauma, resiliency, and the leadership of Redwoods. Heartwood is an interactive sculptural installation made of reclaimed redwood from massive forest fires. The redwood trunk is open and smoothed to the heartwood of the tree. The sculpture, over ten feet tall and approximately the width of a human trunk, is meant to be hugged by humans who put their own hearts next to that of the redwood. Embrace. A twin sculpture, also over ten feet high and approximately the width of a human, is hollowed out by fire. In this sculpture, the participant steps into the trunk. Be Embraced. The sculpture is surrounded by rings of flowers as an apology and as a symbol of hope.
These sculptures are the setting for a dance performance overlaid with the voices of indigenous culture bearers of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, fire survivors from Middletown, California and other forest fire sites impacted by climate change. Forest ecologists and climate scientists who will share the latest findings from climate-amplified fires and the profound secrets of the Redwood as source material for the dance and in associated events for the public. Lomask and Jung will implement their respective educational programs utilizing the new sculptures - Capacitor’s STEM Portals educational program and Jung’s Nature Walk & Natural Wood Sculpture Art Class.
Redwoods are our ancient California guides. They show us how to weather the fire and reemerge thriving. Heartwood is, collectively, a sculpture, a ritual, a reckoning, and a visioning. It can be presented indoors or outdoors. It is part of the Empowering Nature Global Movement (which includes the Rights of Nature movement). Through the act of physically embracing the sculpture, participants calibrate and regulate their own vibrations while acknowledging their role in the greater ecological system. HeartWood is a call for restoration—both personal and environmental—a reckoning with the historical exploitation of forests and a vision for renewal.