Tiffany Shlain Made Feminist Historical past Tree Rings for Her Present ‘Human Nature’ – PRINT Journal

“In Human Nature, I discover what occurs once we step again to view ourselves throughout the expansiveness of nature and time. I contemplate how this scale realignment can change our perspective, provide context, reveal absurdities, and evoke humility, insights, and awe.”

—Tiffany Shlain

The outdated adage tells us to “cease and odor the roses,” however artist Tiffany Shlain advocates for stopping to depend the tree rings. As a Bay Space native who grew up traipsing in regards to the Muir Woods, Shlain has at all times had an affinity for bushes, which solely intensified in 2020, when she took to nature to fill her days.  

“Rising up close to the Muir Woods and spending lots of time there throughout COVID, I really like whenever you see these large tree slices, however they’re at all times telling male tales,” she advised me not too long ago on a Zoom name. “They’re all colonialist, patriarchal tales, and I simply really feel like I’m being mansplained historical past. So I needed to see a feminist historical past tree ring.”

This concept served as a fruitful space of exploration for Shlain throughout her 2022 artist residency at SHACK15, positioned within the Ferry Constructing in San Francisco. Her residency has culminated in a solo exhibition entitled Human Nature that’s on view now on the prime flooring of the constructing by means of December 15. The expansive exhibition consists of 24 images, sculpture, and time-based media items, together with a feminist tree ring timeline which Shlain describes utilizing the time period “Dendrofemonology.” (Dendrochronology is the science of tree courting.) “I simply love tree rings as a manner to take a look at time and the whole lot,” she advised me. “Out of the blue it’s all I needed to do!”

Whereas 2020 heightened Shlain’s concentrate on nature and people’ relationship to expertise, these are themes and concepts she’s been grappling with as an artist for years. “The Muir Woods are residence to among the oldest bushes on this planet, so within the Bay Space now we have the oldest bushes and the latest applied sciences. That’s laid the groundwork for a lot of my profession,” she shared. 

“Though I really like tech, I used to be feeling prefer it was taking away my skill to be current. So about 13 years in the past I began making lots of movies in regards to the topic, after which I began turning off all screens for Shabat (I’m Jewish), and on these days with out screens my household and I might go on Mount Tam or to the Muir Woods; we simply spent lots of time in nature. I actually began to see how a lot it was altering my mind— I ultimately wrote a e-book about it known as 24/6: The Energy of Unplugging One Day a Week.”    

As soon as COVID plowed into our lives and shut down the world in March 2020, Shlain mined these concepts even additional. “I spent much more time on the mountain, I obtained a canine. I might spend hours within the mountains fascinated by nature, and time, and the way these bushes that I had grown up with, which had at all times been so beautiful to me, had been witnesses to humanity. I began bringing stuff again with me from the mountain and began making sculptures; I moved into a very new medium throughout COVID.”

The lockdown supplied Shlain with the time, area, and perspective to zoom out and dissect how people interact with nature. “COVID for me was rather a lot about this reflective state about The place are we now? The place are we going? I do know lots of people requested lots of private questions like, What am I doing with my life? The place do I need to dwell? However I felt prefer it was this very philosophical interval of fascinated by the place we’re in historical past.”

Human Nature presents the various methods Shlain is working by means of these concepts by means of her meandering inventive follow. And like most of her work, which has ranged from documentaries to spoken phrase performances, Human Nature presents a powerful feminist perspective. If you first stroll into the present, there’s a three-minute lengthy video artwork piece taking part in on a loop. “It’s about [putting] a feminine gaze onto civilization, and historical past, and the place we’re at this second in time,” Shlain defined.    

After the video artwork piece, viewers then expertise a wall of mixed-media gentle containers depicting pictures that are supposed to have a look at nature in a brand new manner. “In each the movie and the pictures, we’re wanting at people who find themselves wanting,” Shlain advised me. “Once I make motion pictures, for instance, I at all times stand behind the theater as a result of I like watching individuals watch it. There’s one thing about a person watching that I discover very highly effective.” To create these works, Shlain collaged discovered objects and pictures collectively and put them in lightboxes. “I really like lightboxes as a result of it feels such as you’re on this portal. It seems like you may simply stroll into the area.” 

Shlain’s exploration of tree rings rounds out the present, which options seven totally different tree ring artworks emblazoned into salvaged tree trunk slices. “The entire wooden is salvaged from bushes that had been already felled,” mentioned Shlain. “They’re from totally different locations throughout; wherever a tree falls, I’m there, attempting to show it into artwork. I obtained these ladies pyrographers to fire-burn textual content into the wooden— and I burned some too!”” 

Shlain’s Dendrofemonology piece on this part depicts a feminist world historical past timeline, beginning with when goddesses had been worshipped. “It’s simply such a greater place to start out the story,” she mentioned. “I’ve made fairly a number of movies about ladies’s historical past, and girls and energy, so I spent lots of time determining what was going to be on this record and consulting with students. There’s a powerful thread of abortion rights in right here, and truly, as I used to be ending this piece in June, Roe v. Wade was overturned. However despite the fact that it was overturned right here, when you go to the underside I present that 65 different nations have legalized abortion within the final yr.” 

Shlain might be conducting a chat and tour of the exhibition by way of Zoom on December 1 at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET. She’ll additionally host two viewings at San Francisco’s Ferry Constructing: an in-person discuss and tour on December 6 at 6 PM, and a public artwork tour day on December 10 from 11 AM to 4 PM.

Discover out extra in regards to the Human Nature exhibition, upcoming occasions, and different locations the present will journey right here.