Collaborating with Trees: In Conversation with Espen Hjort and Evgenia Emets

Organized as part of the group exhibition Trees, we breathe, “Collaborating with Trees: In Conversation with Espen Hjort and Evgenia Emets” will take the form of an open-ended conversation between the Wave Hill curators and artists Espen Hjort and Evgenia Emets. Hjort and Emets are both multidisciplinary artists and writers working and communicating directly with living mediums. This focus of the conversation will be on the artists' respective practices and their commitment to revising our extractive relationship to the landscape by bringing the trees directly into their creative processes as collaborators. The artists will discuss questions related to embodied knowledge, consent, hierarchy, and modes of breaking traditional theatrical frameworks.  

Espen Hjort will focus on his latest theatrical production Treework, a contemporary opera based on the assumption that trees are creative beings who express themselves through music and movement. Hjort cites the trees as co-creators, choreographers, and composers of this work, in which human performers try to learn from the embodied knowledge that these beings hold.  

Evgenia Emets will discuss her ongoing project Eternal Forest, a growing global effort to activate local communities as stewards of the forest. Working in partnership with landowners, artists, and scientists, among others, the Eternal Forest project has formed a vast network that creates forest sanctuaries across the globe. The project’s goal is to create 1,000 such sanctuaries that will be protected for 1,000 years to safeguard these ancient forests for future generations and realign our  relationships with forests, biodiversity, time, and the sacred. Eternal Forest is growing into a global organization in collaboration with artists, scientists, cultural agents, tree-planting organizations, and land partners. 

This discussion will be guided by Afriti Bankwalla, Curatorial Administrative Assistant.