From Tree to Tree and Back Again

Once again, I was asked to participate in the annual art project at Saunders’ Farm, Garrison, NY — as a curator of performance art and as a performance artist.  Wanting to devise a project for myself that would engage the public in both silent and spoken forms of communication, I developed this plan:  a participant and I would walk from one tree to another without talking and then walk back to the original tree, discussing the experience of walking in silence in proximity to a stranger.

My plan went off without a hitch!  And I enjoyed the diverse ways in which each encounter with a member of the public played itself out.  Some people approached the experience with great seriousness and spoke at length – in quasi-philosophical terms – about various forms of communion — with nature and/or with others.  Other participants noted the particulars of the terrain and/or our walking speeds and/or the sounds that one hears when one stops talking!  All in all, this project provided me with yet another chance to remind people of the joys of communicating without a computer or a cell phone!