New Growth: Dialogues on the Tree

Event Date: March 31, 2012, 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Event Website: ahgsay.com/symposium
City: Kleinburg, Ontario
Venue: McMichael Canadian Art Collection
Country: Canada
Primary Contact Name: Nicole Cropley
Contact Email: ncropleyyorku.ca or ahgsaygmail.com

New Growth: Dialogues on the Tree reconsiders the tree through its
representations in art and aesthetics. The tree has taken on many meanings
throughout history and across cultures within mythology, religion, art,
political & state propaganda, and scientific study—to name only a few such
categories. Within current environmental debates, the cultural significance of
the tree is juxtaposed by the threat of its extinction that massive
deforestation, over-exploitation, and urban sprawl pose. The papers selected
for inclusion in the symposium maintain a close tie to the motif of the tree in
art and aesthetics, expanding out towards examinations of landscape and nature.

The event is part of The McMichael Tree Project, a series of tree-related
exhibitions and programming taking place at the gallery from January through
April. The exhibition “The Tree: Form and Substance,” curated by McMichael
Chief Curator Katerina Atanassova, features works from the McMichael’s
permanent collection in dialogue with contemporary artists’ interpretations of
the tree. Also on view from the Vancouver Art Gallery is “The Tree: From the
Sublime to the Social.” Attendees of the symposium receive complimentary
admission to both exhibitions.

Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Cynthia Hammond
Associate Professor
Department of Art History
Concordia University, MONTRÉAL QC
Paper title: "Every Tree a Staunch Heart:" Activism, Landscape, and Suffrage in
Edwardian England
New Growth: Dialogues on the Tree
Conference Program:

Session I
10:25am-12:15pm

Panel 1A—The Tree: Roots for Nationalism

Scott Gratson—Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia
A Cultural Reappropriation of Trees: Albrecht Durer’s Rendering of the Wild
Forest Motif

Laura Turner Igoe—Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia
“Appropriate in a Sylvan State:” William Rush’s Self-Portrait and the
Environment Body in Early National Philadelphia

Panel 1B—The Tree in European Art: 15th-19th centuries

Maryanne Cline Horowitz—Occidental College, Los Angeles, California
The Tree of the Mind

Leopoldine Prosperetti—Towson University, Baltimore, Maryland
From Beech to Juniper: Virgil’s Eclogues and Arboreal Imagery in European Art
1500-1800

Panel 2A—Shifting Landscapes in Contemporary Art

Amy Wallace—York University, Toronto, Ontario
John Sasaki’s “Pine”: Landscape and Longing in Algonquin Park

Elysia French—Queens University, Kingston, Ontario
The Disappearance of the Tree in Landscape Art: Environmental Concern in the
works of Edward Burtynsky and Olafur Eliasson

Panel 2B—Arboreal Images: Iconographies of the Tree

Joe Hartman—Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
El Senor del Arbol: Dialogism and Visual Culture in Highland Ecuador

Pippa Salonius—Calgary, Alberta
“Predicare est Arborisare”: the Mendicant Orders, the Cathedral and the Papacy
in early 14th c Orvieto

Artist Talks
1:00pm-1:40pm

Outdoors:
Ryszard Litwiniuk

Exhibition Space:
Edward Falkenberg

Session II
2:00pm-3:45pm

Panel 3A—Decaying Ends

Daniela Tudor— University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
Trees and Fungi, the legacy of darkness

Ela Przybylo— York University, Toronto, Ontario
“This Tree:” Virginia Woolf’s Thought on the After-Life

Amanda Hellman— Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Tree Sculpture and the exploration of Growth and Decay

Panel 3B—Interactions in Public Space

Mark Sherman— Ryerson/LEAF, Toronto, Ontario
Preserving grown heritage through the reuse of felled urban trees

Amanda White, Lydia Burggraaf, Meghan Krauss— University of Windsor, Windsor,
Ontario
The Arbonauts

Adrina Bardekjian— York University, Toronto, Ontario
Of Arboretums and Arborscapes: Questioning Ecological and Social Identity within
Language and Discourse

Keynote Address
4:00pm-6:00pm

Cynthia Hammond—Concordia University, Montréal, Quebec
“Every Tree a Staunch Heart:” Activism, Landscape, and Suffrage in Edwardian
England

For further information on the event including registration, symposium schedule,
and directions to the McMichael please visit www.ahgsay.com/symposium or email
us at ahgsaygmail.com.