Tree Museum
We invited artist Katie Holten to write about her current project, Tree Museum, a public artwork in the Bronx, New York. — Ed.
Katie Holten, "Tree Museum," Grand Concourse, Bronx, New York, 2009. Aerial view from the roof of the former Concourse Plaza Hotel.
I think it’s fair to say that Tree Museum is unlike most other recent public art projects in New York City. The scale of the project is huge and at ten miles in length, rivals that of recent blockbusters such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates (Central Park, 2005), Olafur Eliasson’s The New York City Waterfalls (NYC waterfronts, produced by the Public Art Fund, 2008) and PLOT: This World and Nearer Ones (Governor’s Island, produced by CREATIVE TIME, 2009). But the comparison ends there. In all other regards, the Tree Museum is a different species.
Almost invisible, the Tree Museum, which quietly opened on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx in June, makes the hidden elements of the street visible. At the root of my practice is an understanding that nature is not somewhere else. Nature is not far away on an abandoned island or in a prairie; it is everything around us, including the unforgiving city streets and the inherently urban communities of the South Bronx. These very streets are natural and this environment – our sidewalk, our block, our apartment building, and of course our street tree — is our place in the city.
Katie Holten, "Tree Museum," Grand Concourse, Bronx, New York, 2009
The Tree Museum invites pedestrians to experience the Bronx, and New York City, in unexpected ways. One hundred street trees, from 138th Street at the southern tip of the Grand Concourse to Mosholu Parkway at the northern tip, are the points of entry to this “museum-without-walls.” The audio guide at the core of the Tree Museum links the natural and social ecosystems. The recorded voices and stories are used sculpturally to create an artwork whose roots reach down into the history of the place, while the branches spread out and offer insights into the resilient communities, fragile ecologies, and vibrant daily scenes to be found along the street.
I was commissioned in December 2007 to create a public artwork to celebrate the centennial of the four-and-a-half-mile stretch of the Grand Concourse, the historic boulevard connecting Manhattan to the parks of the north Bronx. I moved to New York City in 2004 on a Fulbright Scholarship to investigate nature and landscape in the urban context. I began working with street trees, as they are the most palpable connection most city dwellers have with nature.
I walked the Grand Concourse countless times and photographed the entire length, documenting the street through drawings of its trees. On the one hand, I was taking my time, trying to get a grip on the scale of the most important boulevard in the borough. On the other hand, I was forming a simple portrait of the Grand Concourse through the trees, some of which date back to before the Concourse was constructed. Throughout these months, I met hundreds of people, gathered stories and histories, and eventually these simple black and white line drawings developed into the Tree Museum.
