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WE BREATHE TREES (SERIES), 2020 

Made during Covid-19 lockdown...

WE BREATHE TREES: LOCATIONS 1-4 (2020)

LOCATION 1: Bristol Garden - Leaves from Ash, Beech, Cherry, Apple, Plum, Birch, Fig, cotton thread, hemp twine (Dimensions: 15cm x 25cm x 5cm) 

LOCATION 2: Kings Weston Hill Fort ,Bristol - Leaves from Sycamore, Ivy, Oak, Field Maple, Hawthorn, Sweet Chestnut, Larch, Hazel, Buddleia, Lilac, Pear, seed pods from Ash, cotton thread, hemp twine (Dimensions: 15cm x 25cm x 5cm) 

LOCATION 3: Dorset Garden - Leaves from Cherry, Beech, Acer, Bay, Apple, Fig, Magnolia, Smoke Tree, Judas Tree, Rhododendron, Tree-Peony, cotton thread, hemp twine (Dimensions: 15cm x 25cm x 5cm)

LOCATION 4: St Andrews Park, Bristol - Leaves from Lime, Gingko, Rowan, Walnut, Beech, Ash, Sycamore, Cherry, flowers and seed pods from Sycamore and Lime, cotton thread, hemp twine (Dimensions: 15cm x 25cm x 5cm)

WE BREATHE TREES: COPPER BEECH (2020)

Copper Beech leaves, cotton thread, hemp twine (Dimensions: 15cm x 25cm x 5cm)

WE BREATHE TREES: OAK (2020)

Oak leaves, cotton thread, hemp twine (Dimensions: 15cm x 25cm x 5cm)

WE BREATHE TREES: ASH (2020)

Ash leaves, polyester thread, cotton twine (Dimensions: 15cm x 25cm x 5cm)

WE BREATHE TREES: SYCAMORE (2020)

Sycamore leaves, cotton thread, hemp twine (Dimensions: 15cm x 25cm x 5cm)

Gaby explains a bit of the initial thinking behind We Breathe Trees.

Freedom to Breathe 

A shower fell in the night and now dark clouds drift across the sky, occasionally sprinkling a fine film of rain. I stand under an apple-tree in blossom and I breathe. Not only the apple-tree but the grass round it glistens with moisture; words cannot describe the sweet fragrance that pervades the air. Inhaling as deeply as I can, the aroma invades my whole being; I breathe with my eyes open, I breathe with my eyes closed – I cannot say which gives me the greater pleasure. 

This I believe, is the single most precious freedom that prison takes away from us: the freedom to breathe freely, as I now can. No food on earth, no wine, not even a woman’s kiss is sweeter to me than this air steeped in the fragrance of flowers, of moisture and freshness. 

No matter that this is only a tiny garden, hemmed in by five storey houses like cages in a zoo. I cease to hear the motorcycles backfiring, the radios whining, the burble of loudspeakers. as long as there is fresh air to breathe under an apple-tree after a shower, we may survive a little longer.”             

 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn; Stories and Prose Poems 

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