From Tree to Tree and Back Again
Performances (Interactive)
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!