Detail
Traces of the tree’s lived experience remain embedded in its surface. Channels carved by insects, punctures from woodpeckers, and the ruptured grain of a lightning strike index a life shaped through relation—evidence of ecological entanglement rather than singular form. These marks resist the neutrality of the vitrine, insisting on a history that exceeds classification. Yet, removed from the forest floor, the tree is no longer able to decompose, host, or nourish. Its ecological function is suspended in favor of its legibility as a specimen.
Quartering and quarantining the tree draws a parallel between environmental extraction and institutional practices that isolate, catalog, and aestheticize living systems. The work asks what it means to preserve life by halting its processes, and whether such acts of care reproduce the very conditions of separation and control that produce ecological loss in the first place.