Andrea Frank
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TREE SPEED

Tree speed is an artist collaborative with artist Michael Asbill. Through experiential process-based explorations, we seek dialogue with the magnificent mesh of life we are embedded in--the animals and plants, the ancestors, the elements. We strive to re-root ourselves in the experience of interdependency, to open our perception toward different time horizons, taking sensory and intuitive information seriously. From there, an embodied way of knowing can inform our collective and transdisciplinary alignment with unfolding events. This is our response to the formidable set of interrelated catastrophes brought forth by the Western way of life we seem unable to turn away from. We have held local and international collaborative think tanks and experiential processes in person and online and often work with or at the Mohonk Preserve in New Paltz. See here for our collaboration on Heeding Impulse and Time Drawing.


ADAPTER BLANKETS (2022 - ongoing)


Twelve emergency blankets were hand-stitched with lines following the water transportation system, or xylem, of trees, and augmented with sewn-on cuffs, from which partially braided balls of yarn can unwind. We have used them with groups of participants in different sites to sit or lie entangled with each other and our environment while wrapped and sheltered in these bark-blankets. Participants slow and quiet down, experiencing themselves here now, enmeshed with all that is.


tree speed tree speed
tree speed tree speed


ADAPTING TO TREE SPEED Exhibition at CANO, NY

 
In this 2023 exhibition, the adapter blankets were pitched into a playful fort, an adaptive encampment of sorts. Held up by inverted stems of sumac, an early succession forest plant, the installation’s interior invites visitors to settle into and experience this symbolic forest structure.

The video Shapeshifter was projected as part of the installation, to be viewed from inside the sculpture. It presents a layered conversation between a tree, a yoga instructor, and a newscaster, negotiating combustion and exchanges of carbon and oxygen at body, ecosystem- and industrial scales as we observe pieces of charred paper transitioning from carbon to ash.

Video: Shapeshifter (2019) was collaboratively created by Michael Asbill, Andrea Frank, and Amanda Heidel.
Camera and Editing: Andrea Frank
Sound: Jerry Adler and Andrea Frank
Voices: Tree - Michael Asbill, yoga teacher - Amanda Heidel, newscaster - Andrea Frank

 

tree speed tree speed
tree speed tree speed







 

Andrea Frank