The Rooting Project: ghosts

Sculpture and audio
Guelph, 2012

In 1827 on the banks of the Speed River, John Galt and a small crew symbolically cut down a maple tree to mark the founding of the City of Guelph. In Galt's autobiography of 1833, he describes the echo of the axe felling the ancient maple tree as "the sigh of the solemn genius of the wilderness departing forever..." 
  
The Rooting Project rewrites this mythology. Invasive plant species growing along the Speed River where the original tree was felled were made it into paper sheets embedded with native seeds. I sewed the paper to a reconstructed tree form. An audio component of this work included a sound piece with quotes from Galt’s autobiography mixed with sounds of the river and descriptions of the shifting ecology of this site. In the months after the installation, the paper pieces were planted along the river. 

Sound Editing: Robert Kingsbury
Writing: Christina Kingsbury
Voice: Robert Kingsbury, Aislinn Thomas, 
Christina Kingsbury
Installation team: Kimm Khagram, Ward Pangborn, Janet Morton, John Vanstein

Photos: Dean Palmer

Exhibition history

Guelph International Jazz Festival Nuit Blanche, Guelph, 2012