art Archives - Sempervirens Fund

Sempervirens in Elementis

WEBDOGS — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 20:27:56 +0000

Sempervirens in Elementis

New Art from Jane Kim

In her new art series, Sempervirens in Elementis—Latin for ever living in the elements, Sempervirens Fund’s Forest Fellow Jane Kim explores the relationship between redwoods and the elements: water, fire, earth, and air.

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Artwork by Jane Kim

Exploring the Angles and Elements of Redwoods

As Sempervirens Fund’s inaugural Forest Fellow, Jane Kim has spent the last year studying the wonders of redwood trees. In order to begin to understand the redwood, the artist learned, they can not be studied in isolation. The trees are both a product of their ecosystem and a force that transforms it.

"I knew that I wanted to explore redwoods from many angles and the elements felt like a way to tell a whole story, " said Kim. "One of the most exciting things about the Forest Fellowship is the access and support I have to research, field trips, and the scientific community."

In her series Sempervirens in Elementis, debuting February 15 at the Andra Norris Gallery in Burlingame, the artist explores the relationship between redwoods and the elements: water, fire, earth, and air. Each work tells stories of the redwoods’ adaptations to the elements and the benefits they offer.

At the center of each piece can be found an ink print of a redwood round cut from a 500-year-old tree collected in the aftermath of the 2020 CZU Fire at the Gateway to Big Basin bordering Big Basin Redwoods State Park. For Kim, the round communicates the scars of human desire. “I am exploring the ways desire manifests itself in our actions and artifacts,” Jane Kim. “Our human relationship with redwoods, especially in the past few centuries, has been both exploitative and curious–but redwoods' relationship with the elements endures.”

The surrounding imagery of each piece in the series represents the natural intelligence of a redwood forest as the center of a complex, interconnected network of species and systems.

Sneak a Peek at Elementis in Sempervirens

WATER

In WATER, Kim submerges the round in a deep pool of a brimming creek to explore the mutualism of Coho salmon and redwood trees. (Concept rendering. Work in progress.)

FIRE

In FIRE, Kim reveals old secrets, from fire-following flora and wildlife, to new habitats for secondary nesters among redwoods’s hollows.

EARTH

In EARTH, Kim examines the secrets that sustain redwoods underground, and their relationship with fungi and earthen critters.

AIR

In AIR, Kim centers on redwoods’ relationship with fog–a critical source of water for the giants–and the wildlife that rely on both.

You can enjoy Jane's full works of art at the Sempervirens in Elementis exhibit at the Andra Norris Gallery from February 15 - March 14. Learn more.

More to Explore

Watch Jane Kim’s process of learning and creating in Curiosity Stories
See more of Jane Kim’s illustrations in the Redwoods and Climate Series
Learn more about redwoods and the elements Under the Redwoods

The post Sempervirens in Elementis appeared first on Sempervirens Fund.

Recording Redwoods: Sounds of the Forest

WEBDOGS — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 13:00:59 +0000

Recording Redwoods

Sounds of the Forest

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Field recordist, Thomas Rex Beverly, found an answer to the age-old philosophical question, and so much more, on his quest to capture the sounds of the redwood forest. Among the protected old-growth redwoods of the “Valley of the Giants” at Camp Jones Gulch, Thomas records the subtle sounds of nearly silent spaces. Follow his Curiosity Stories quest to hear the redwood forest as you never have before.

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photo by Thomas Rex Beverly

Thomas Rex Beverly has dangled from ropes in deep caves and off Patagonian glaciers to masterfully record the sounds of nature which help bring stories like CODA, The Last of Us, and Frozen II to life. This time, he hopes to dangle overnight from an old-growth redwood in the “Valley of the Giants” at Camp Jones Gulch, which you protected in 2022. Excited to uncover sounds of nature nearly imperceptible to the human ear alone, he cups his ears listening intently in the old-growth grove to gauge how long sounds travel beneath the ancient trees. After carefully listening to a subtle gust of wind blow through the grove, he explains the sound of the wind is formed by the length of the tree’s needles; their distance from the ground mellows the sound.

https://sempervirens.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Recording-Redwoods-Microphone-Pan-to-Canopy-by-Thomas-Rex-Beverly_1.mp4

As he looks for ideal spaces to place his microphones attuned to different levels of noise on the forest floor, he hopes to hear water, rain, wind, birds, and the hollows of the redwoods as they can only be heard by one of the most sensitive microphones in the world. But recording at Camp Jones Gulch has different challenges than some of Thomas’ more remote locations. Just miles away from the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, airplanes occasionally make their way above the canopy and enthusiastic young YMCA campers below.

To capture as much of the forest’s subtle sounds as possible, Thomas camped at Camp Jones Gulch for a week. What he heard were astonishing sounds that set him on a magical microphone mystery.

Visit Sounds of the Forest for an immersive journey into this environment and hear the solitude of the forest come to life.

Join Thomas Rex Beverly on his Curiosity Stories quest to hear the redwood forest as you never have before.

Subscribe to Sempervirens Fund’s YouTube channel to follow Thomas' journey in the first season of Curiosity Stories.

More to Explore

Watch more Curiosity Stories about the wonders of redwoods
Subscribe on YouTube for episode 2 of Thomas’ Curiosity Story
Learn more about redwoods

The post Recording Redwoods: Sounds of the Forest appeared first on Sempervirens Fund.

Underground Allies: The Importance of Fungi in Redwood Conservation

WEBDOGS — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 06:59:26 +0000

Underground Allies

The Importance of Fungi in Redwood Conservation

By Dr. Patricia J. Kaishian, Ph.D.
Mycologist and visiting Assistant Professor at Bard College

Puhpohwee in the Potawatomi language means the force that causes mushrooms to push up from the earth overnight.¹^,²

Along the Pacific coast of the United States, coast redwood trees have thrived for millions of years. First emerging almost a quarter of a billion years ago, this lineage of trees has witnessed the evolution of numerous organisms, such as birds, flowers, and humans.

There are three remaining species of redwoods: Sequoia sempervirens (coast redwood), Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant redwood), and Metasequoia glyptostroboides (dawn redwood). Collectively, these three species form the subfamily Sequoioideae, which is part of the cypress family (Cupressaceae). Famous for their capacity for enormous heights (>360 feet) and ancient life spans (~2,200 years), redwoods have entranced people for millennia.

These spectacular redwood trees are world famous, and each year, their allure draws millions of visitors from around the world. What most park visitors overlook, however, is a lesser-known group of organisms whose biology is vital to survival of the trees. These organisms are fungi, and we would be wise to pay attention to them.

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illustration by Rebecca Zwanzig, High West Wild.

The World of Fungi

Like all terrestrial forests, redwood forests are both directly and indirectly supported by expansive networks of fungi. All around the world, in soils and organic tissues (logs, leaves, decaying animals, etc.), there are fungi living mostly invisibly. Some species of fungi produce mushrooms, or fruiting bodies, which are the spore-bearing organs of a fungus.

It may be helpful to remember that all mushrooms are fungi, but not all fungi are mushrooms. The term “mushroom” typically means a fungus with a cap and stem, like the common portobello, but is loosely applied to any fungus with a conspicuous, aboveground fruiting body. Fungi can take on numerous forms, from the microscopic, single-cellular yeasts living in our bodies and fermenting our beer to the largest organism known on Earth — a patch of mycelium in eastern Oregon spanning about 10 square kilometers (or ~4 square miles), belonging to a species of honey mushroom, Armillaria ostoyae.

Mycelium (mycelia plural) is a network of fungal cells that move through substrates, seek and digest nutrients, and carry out mating and that can live undetectable to the naked eye for much, if not all, of the individual’s life. It is estimated that in a single thimble of soil, there are 400 meters of fungal cells in the form of mycelia (Christensen, 1989). A mushroom will arise from mycelium, discharge its spores, and then gradually decompose or be consumed by other beings, while the mycelium lives on.

The Many Roles of Fungi

Fungi perform numerous functions, living within both marine and terrestrial systems and in habitats ranging from deserts to rain forests. Fungi provide nourishment directly as a food source to animals, offer habitat for invertebrates and other small creatures, and support new life through nutrient recycling. They break down lignin and cellulose from plant matter and decompose animal remains.

Imagine for a moment that when a tree falls, there are no fungi or bacteria to actively decompose the plant material — very quickly, fallen tree trunks would pile up and cover the landscape, making new tree growth almost impossible.

Amazingly, this exact scenario did once occur on Earth over 300 million years ago, in what we call the Carboniferous period. At this time, the ability for microbes to digest lignin and cellulose had not yet evolved, and this massive accumulation of dead tree material compressed under its own weight and, over time, transformed into coal. The evolution of this digestive capacity is just one way in which fungi and other microbes dramatically alter, enable, and guide life on Earth.

Mushrooms on a charred redwood stump at San Vicente Redwoods By Ian Bornarth.

Fungi also perform a spectrum of symbiotic interactions ranging from parasitism to mutualism, all of which are critical to the biodiversity of habitats around the world. For example, cellulose-digesting fungi have evolved to live in the guts of termites, enabling termites to eat and digest wood. Another type of symbiosis involving fungi is known as mycorrhizae, or mycorrhizal networks.

“Myco” refers to “mycology,” the study of fungi, and “rhiza” means “root.” Mycorrhizae are fungi that form partnerships with over 90% of terrestrial plants, including redwoods. The mycelium can either connect to the roots of the plant or penetrate the plant cells.

Fly agaric mushrooms, by Holger Krisp.

There are many types of mycorrhizal fungi, some of which produce well-known mushrooms, such as the iconic Amanita muscaria, or the fly agaric mushroom. In these interactions, the fungus provides the plant nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus; water; antimicrobial protections; and an assortment of other benefits that we are still working to fully understand.

In exchange, the plant provides carbon in the form of sugar, which was produced by photosynthesis in the plant tissue. This type of symbiosis is referred to as mutualistic because both partners benefit from the exchange. Plants not only benefit from their fungal partners, but these benefits can be dramatic. For example, in a research study conducted in a tree nursery, seedlings of the giant and coastal redwoods inoculated with known mycorrhizae partners were found to be 2–3 times larger than uninoculated seedlings (Kough et al., 1985; Molina, 1994).

Understanding and promoting the growth of mycorrhizal fungi is essential to the health of redwood forests and is especially critical for regeneration of damaged habitat.

Fossil evidence for a type of mycorrhizal fungus genus called Glomites dates back to the Devonian period, ~400 million years ago, which is the geologic period in which terrestrial plants began to emerge in the fossil record (Taylor et al., 1995). Due to the early fossil evidence and the widespread reliance on these fungi, it is believed that mycorrhizae critically facilitated the transition of plants from the ocean to land. Previously uninhabitable land became accessible to plants through cooperative resource sharing with fungi.

These fundamental partnerships mean that a robust mycological community leads to a healthier, more resilient forest.

Fungal Companions

In the redwood forests and surrounding habitats, there are hundreds of documented species of macro fungi (fungi that form fruiting bodies that are visible without a microscope). These species range from the bright and conspicuous soil-dwelling Leptonia carnea to the modest and oft-overlooked wood-decaying Annulohypoxylon thouarsianum.

There are also several mushroom species in redwood forests that are edible for humans, such as the blewit, Lepista nuda, a light purple and soil-dwelling mushroom. Another is the ubiquitous oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus, which is not only edible but also famous for its ability to help remediate habitats polluted by fossil fuels by digesting the waste (Akhtar & Amin-ul Mannan, 2020).

At present, the scientific consensus is that there are approximately 3 million species of fungi on planet Earth (Hawksworth & Lücking, 2017). Of that estimate, only about 140,000 species have been formally described by scientists, meaning the vast majority of species remain unnamed (Kirk, 2019). Most of this biodiversity remains in the hyperdiverse habitats, such as tropical rainforests, and in the underexamined microhabitats, such as in caves, aquatic habitats, and in or on the body of other organisms, such as insects and plant leaves (Hawksworth & Lücking, 2017).

Mushrooms of a Redwood Forest

soil-dwelling Leptonia carnea

blewit, Leptista nuda

cramp balls, Annulohypoxylon thouarsianum

Oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus

illustrations by Rebecca Zwanzig, High West Wild

Science and Society

Mycology is a powerful case study in the material ways by which science and culture reinforce each other. Fungi have been largely neglected by science and European-American culture, and collectively, they have a reputation for being harmful, poisonous, and pathogenic despite all of their critical ecological functions described above. The explanation for this is not straightforward but is related to the ways in which fungi disrupt the Western cultural values of individualism, predictability, and control. By embodying collective, unpredictable, and uncontrollable biologies, fungi have been perceived as antagonistic, and the priority was not in understanding them but in eradicating them (Kaishian and Djoulakian, 2020).

As much as scientists like to assert that our work is recalcitrant to the political and social influences of our world, it is a plain fact that our studies can be corrupted by human biases, sometimes in very dangerous ways. Perhaps this is most evident in one of science’s most insidious spawns, the eugenics movement.

Eugenics, as a field, has ties to science because it employs a biased understanding of genetics and inheritance in an attempt to prove the biological nature of race and racialized qualities, such as intellect, work ethic, poverty, and criminality. Central to eugenics is the notion of “purity” in genetic material or gene pools.

Eugenics was a popular, widespread movement that was routinely taught in universities throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries and is still propagated today. This school of thought places a cultural and scientific emphasis on purity and charisma, assigning the highest value to beings that meet arbitrary standards of perfection — concepts that have directly informed and inspired the field of redwood conservation (Allen, 2013). In fact, redwoods became a symbol of self-professed genetic greatness of Europeans.

by Ian Bornarth.

This mindset has impeded our understanding of the entangled ecological realities of our own societies and bodies as well as the ecological systems that support the human species. In addition to the enormous human cost of such racist ideologies, there have been profound costs to our biodiversity. For the eugenicists, as well as for cultures influenced by its oppressive dogma, there is a great humiliation in recognizing the shared realities and interdependencies between races and between species.

What would it mean for a society if their accumulated wealth was not due to their inherent greatness but due to the forced labor of others? Similarly, what would it mean to redwood symbology if a redwood grove was not simply sustained by some raw genetic excellence but was critically supported by an underground network of fungi?

mycelium illustration by Rebecca Zwanzig, High West Wild.

Conservation

The consequences of negative perceptions of fungi are evident. As of 2022, fewer than 600 species of fungi have been evaluated for placement on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. By comparison, over 25,000 species of plants and over 68,000 species of animals have been evaluated.

While it may seem like a positive sign to be underrepresented on the endangered species list, this is unfortunately a negative consequence of being under-studied. As a group, fungi are no more immune to the dangers of habitat destruction and climate change than any other group of organisms. Some fungi may be resilient in the face of drought or increased temperatures, but others may be highly sensitive. The difference is that far fewer scientists research fungi compared to other groups, and therefore, fewer resources have been invested in understanding the impacts of climate change on fungal diversity.

As mycologists, we have worked hard to correct this disparity, but we fear we may be losing species to extinction faster than we can describe them or understand the various roles they may be playing in our environment. Fungi need more attention, resources, and care from both scientists and the public. Despite — or perhaps because of — their often-minute size, fungi are integral to the habitats and lifeworlds we call home.

“ Fungi need more attention, resources, and care from both scientists and the public. Despite — or perhaps because of — their often-minute size, fungi are integral to the habitats and lifeworlds we call home.”

— Dr. Patricia J. Kaishian, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, Bard College

Redwood forests are doubtlessly a precious habitat in need of stewardship. This stewardship can only be strengthened by extending our care to fungi and each other. The recent surge in mushroom appreciation is a wonderful opportunity for our planet and our society. We can look to fungi as both a metaphor and collaborators in this process by forming embedded, intercellular bonds that transcend species and decompose notions of purity.

Through their partnerships, fungi exemplify collaboration and interdependence. While they may not evoke descriptors like majestic or glorious from most people, fungi humbly carry out the vital labor of our planet. Protecting and restoring redwood forests involves taking into account the interconnected ecosystem from tallest redwoods to lifeforms even smaller than the tiniest mycelium as Sempervirens Fund’s Natural Resource Manager Beatrix Jiménez-Helsley can attest:

“When we restore redwood forests, we focus on protecting not only the aboveground resources we can see, like trees, plants, water, wildlife, but also what we can’t see – the soil below us teeming with life. Soil isn’t dirt. It’s alive and active with worms, fungi, bacteria, and microbes breaking down complex materials which in turn makes nutrients available for plants, and has resulted in symbiotic relationships between belowground and aboveground organisms.”

-Beatrix Jiménez-Helsley
Natural Resource Manager, Sempervirens Fund

photo by Amanda Krauss.

As we are faced with both climate change and the harmful legacy of eugenics — in the conservation movement, in scientific disciplines, and in culture more broadly — it can be tempting to bury the problem or to look the other way. However, to more fully heal, make amends, commit to reparations, and build sustainable, biodiverse futures, it is essential that the process of reckoning is active.

We must recognize that climate change is fundamentally linked to legacies of colonialism and that the only path forward is one that works to understand these connections. As we move through the challenges of this era, we must think creatively and expansively about how to remediate and myceliate our soils, both literally and figuratively. We cannot do this without fungi.

More to Explore

Learn more about how fungi help redwoods communicate in Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest with Dr. Suzanne Simard
Read more about fungi's role in Redwood Fairy Rings and the Magic of Science
Read more about protecting Redwoods and Flora of the Santa Cruz mountains

Footnotes

Peschel, K. 1998. Puhpohwee for the People: A Narrative Account of Some Uses of Fungi Among the Ahnishinaabeg. LEPS Press. https://books.google.com/books/about/Puhpohwee_for_the_People.html?id=ifJBAAAAIAAJ

Kimmerer, R.W. 2013. Braiding sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions. https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass

References

Allen, G.E. 2013. “Culling the Herd”: Eugenics and the Conservation Movement in the United States, 1900-1940. Journal of the History of Biology, 46(1), 31–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-011-9317-1

Akhtar N., Amin-ul Mannan M. 2020. Mycoremediation: Expunging environmental pollutants. Biotechnology Reports, 26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.btre.2020.e00452

Christensen, M. 1989. A view of fungal ecology. Mycologia, 8(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/3759446

Hawksworth D., Lücking R. 2017. Fungal diversity revisited: 2.2 to 3.8 million species. Microbiology Spectrum, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1128/microbiolspec.funk-0052-2016

Kaishian P., Djoulakian H. 2020. The science underground: Mycology as a queer discipline. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 6(2), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v6i2.33523

Kimmerer, R.W. 2013. Braiding sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions. https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass

Kirk, P.M. 2019. Catalogue of life. http://www.catalogueoflife.org

Kough J.L., Molina R., Linderman R.G. 1985. Mycorrhizal responsiveness of Thuja, Calocedrus, Sequoia, and Sequoiadendron species of western North America. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 15(6),1049–1054. https://doi.org/10.1139/x85-170

Molina, R. 1994. The role of mycorrhizal symbioses in the health of giant redwoods and other forest ecosystems. USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station,151, 78–81. https://www.fs.usda.gov/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr151/psw_gtr151_12_molina.pdf

Taylor T.N., Remy W., Hass H., Kerp H. 1995. Fossil arbuscular mycorrhizae from the Early Devonian. Mycologia, 87(4), 560–573. https://doi.org/10.2307/3760776

The post Underground Allies: The Importance of Fungi in Redwood Conservation appeared first on Sempervirens Fund.

The End of Rain

WEBDOGS — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 16:23:21 +0000

The End of Rain

Exploring Drought, Fire, and Our Relationship with Land Through Art and Music

As temperatures soar, droughts become more frequent, and fire seasons lengthen, does it change how we see the land? Can these experiences help us bring balance to our relationship with nature before it's too late? Scott Ordway, an award-winning composer, multimedia artist, and Assistant Professor of Composition at Rutgers University, was moved to explore those questions when he heard of the devastation the CZU fire had wrought upon the idyllic forests, meadows, and beaches of his childhood in the Santa Cruz mountains.

We asked Ordway how growing up in the Santa Cruz mountains forged his connection with nature and shapes his art. Through words, sounds, and images he reflects on his changing relationship with land through drought and fire and the hope that experiences like these through art can help strengthen connections with nature–the basis for action.

Launch the Experience

photos by Scott Ordway

The End of Rain

Our relationship with nature is a prominent and recurring theme in composer and multimedia artist Scott Ordway's work. Could a pivotal occurrence like the CZU fire—catastrophic fire tearing through a fire resistant coast redwood temperate rainforest— change our view of the land? Ordway crowdsourced input from more than 200 Californians who shared their first-hand experience of wildfire and drought over the past several years. He collected and analyzed the 80,000 words they shared, and extracted a large poetic text which forms the the lyrics for his symphonic composition, the vocals of which will be performed by the Grammy winning ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, and accompanied by projected landscape photography and video that he created while traveling throughout his home state and collecting the texts. The result is the symphonic work “The End of Rain” which premiered at America's oldest festival of new orchestral works, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, on July 29th 2022.

In anticipation of the premiere of “The End of Rain”, Ordway curated an experience of his photography and music to share with you his evolving relationship with land through his experience with the Santa Cruz mountains and his hopes for how art can help nudge us from loving nature to taking action to protect it.

Experiencing The End of Rain and a Changing Connection

by Scott Ordway

Listen

Click play to hear Scott Ordway's Interior No. 3, "After Us, The Birds Will Sing" with his accompanying words and images for the full experience. Performed by Elly Toyoda (violin) and Scott Ordway (piano).

https://sempervirens.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Scott-Ordway-Interior-No-3-2020.mp3

“I spent the first years of my life in Lompico in the Santa Cruz mountains, so I was born and raised in a very dense, very wet redwood forest.”

That's where I spent the first part of my childhood. We moved to a house at the very edge of the Henry Cowell State Park. At the end of my street for my whole childhood was Henry Cowell. For me, that version of forest remains the archetypal idea of what a forest is supposed to look like. Most of the world's forests don't look anything like those forests. I'm underwhelmed by most other forests. Not tall enough, they're not dense enough. They're not green enough. There are not enough banana slugs.

When you grow up somewhere, you use that as the baseline. When you grow up someplace as remarkable as Santa Cruz, you don't realize it's remarkable when you're 12. The redwoods are a spiritual home, as well as literally my home.

“I've addressed a wide range of topics in my work, but I've spent the most time thinking about our relationship to forests, landscape, and the natural world.”

The many, many hours that I've spent by myself in the redwood forest were formative in developing the skill to listen in a careful and sustained way over long periods of time.

Most of my creative time is spent in silence, listening and waiting. The ability to sustain that focus and to find silence and stillness as a fertile place for ideas comes directly from my experience growing up with access to the outdoors and to remarkable outdoors at that.

It was very painful at first to return to landscapes that I knew well, and landmarks that I knew well and find them either completely gone, blackened, or in some other way damaged. But as the project went on, and as I talked to more and more people, and as I visited at different times of the year over the course of about 18 months, my own emotional relationship to fire evolved as I came to understand better the extent to which fire is a natural and healthy part of the forest ecosystem.

It's a neutral phenomenon from a natural standpoint, it's not good, it's not bad, it's just a thing that happens in forests. Seeing the wildflower growth this season after a fire was a remarkable experience that I'd never witnessed before.

I came to realize the real complexity rests in the relationship between humans and the landscape.

The questions are how people are relating to it and how we're planning developments and how we're planning stewardship of the forests. And how we are acknowledging the fact that fire is part of a healthy forest ecosystem.

It's a different picture than I thought originally, which was purely kind of an emotional reaction to what's initially very shocking.

"It's a pivotal moment for humanity as we reach a point of no return with respect to the human cost of climate change."

It's my belief that where art can intervene in a way which is potent and useful is by creating a different emotional relationship to a topic. I don't delude myself that my work will somehow "raise awareness of climate change." It would be preposterous to think that my work will "raise awareness of wildfire" for anyone in the Santa Cruz County area who has been living through wildfire.

I feel that art has the possibility to create and or strengthen emotional relationships to topics. People are moved to take action when they develop an irrational love for something.

Alarm bells have been sounded in every conceivable way around the need to protect and care for the natural world, both at the local and at the sort of policy level, but people don't take action themselves personally, until they have either a direct stake in things, or the kind of irrational love for something. Part of what art, and specifically music, can do is to create those irrational bonds of love that make people begin to take ownership of and have a stake in a topic or an idea. When you show somebody how beautiful something can be, that beauty has the power to persuade and to deepen connections.

"I want to create emotional and aesthetic connections which then become the basis for action.”

There's a finite list of things that most people will genuinely inconvenience themselves on behalf of.

“It's my hope that more people can develop an irrational love for the natural world—something they love no matter what. Not for a calculated reason. Just the kind of gut level, emotional love that they would do crazy things for.”

—Scott Ordway, composer and multimedia artist, 2022

Join Us

Take action during this pivotal moment to protect nature and help future generations connect to it.

Redwoods Now, For All, Forever.

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Experience The End of Rain

While The End of Rain premiered at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music on July 29, 2022 in Santa Cruz, California, you can experience "The End of Rain" through Scott Ordway's limited edition book with the complete crowdsourced texts of the work together with 97 photographs documenting the shared impact of fire and drought on California landscapes and communities.

More to Explore

Watch The End of Rain: Art, Emotion, and Land with Scott Ordway
Read more about protecting land and connecting youth with nature at Camp Jones Gulch
Learn more about how you can protect Redwoods, Now, For All, Forever

The post The End of Rain appeared first on Sempervirens Fund.