Forest Object Archive Season 2 (FOA2):
”The tree preserves the memory of a contact. It remembers its form in its structure. Its form is the sum of the memories of its experience, of dry summers and frosty winters, the winds and rains, the blows recieved and so on” Giuseppe Penone.
FOA 2 explores the topography of organic skins - archivists sent images of bark, rocks and other organic coatings. FOA 2 includes collection numbers 35- 98, from 11 collectors, AKT, CV, DW, EC, MD, ML, NC, OS, SA, SM, QSB.
The bark is the skin of the tree. A mnemonic device, storing and archiving environments, simultaneously of the landscape and becoming the landscape; both dead and alive.
The protective layer’s thickness, colour, pattern, and structure are naturally selected genetic defense systems; a skin of the air; a skin of the ground; a skin of constraint. I once heard a story of a tree with bark so thick and with structural ribbing as deep as an ocean’s wavelength. The magnitude of its skin - its thickness and its pattern - a consequence of harsh winters, spring flooding, and tropical summer nights. A sensuous organic microtopography, a reflective boundary between inside and outside.
