Exhumation, Witness, and Reconciling: Reflecting on the Relationship Between Trees,
Landscape, and Sentiments of Home
By
Monique Reiswig
BA, Thompson Rivers University, 2013
Bed, Thompson Rivers University, 2015
BFA, Thompson Rivers University, 2022

A THESIS SUPPORT PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS

EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN
2025

Reiswig 2
Abstract
This paper explores the following research question; how can one utilize place based/nature
inspired practices to create visual depictions of what feeling at home can be like and what it can
become in the future. This is explored through my personal creative lineage and memory by
discussing sense of place, personal connection to local forests and trees, as well as the
interconnectedness of bees to the local ecosystem. Through the use of photography, cyanotype
and textile mediums I explore the relationship between memory and the environment in
sculptural installation and suspended photographic art works. My research references Canadian
and international artists such as Kelly Richardson, Henrik Håkansson and Katie Paterson to draw
upon the existing body of knowledge to support their research. This research was done to draw
attention to the importance of small and large impacts of society on the local natural environment
within British Columbia.

Reiswig 3
List of Figures
Fig. 1: Reiswig M. I’m Here Too, 2022 (Component artwork) Mixed Media.
Fig. 2 Reiswig, M. Reflection: Monte Lake, 2025. Digital photography.
Fig. 3: Richardson K. Pillars of Dawn (I). 2019. 4K video installation with audio.
Fig. 4: Reiswig, M. Planning photo for Exhumation, 2024. Digital photography.
Fig. 5: Reiswig, M. The Workers’ Dance, 2023-4. Dyed cotton and cotton thread.
Fig. 6: Reiswig, M. Exhumation, 2025. Mixed Media.
Fig. 7: Reiswig, M. Surface detail of Exhumation, 2025. Mixed Media.
Fig. 8: Reiswig, M. Surface detail of Exhumation, 2025. Mixed Media.
Fig. 9: Reiswig, M. Unearthed, 2023. Cyanotype, acrylic ink, cotton embroidery thread on
unbleached cotton.
Fig. 10: Reiswig, M. Sky, 2023. Natural plant dye, dyed fabric, cotton embroidery thread on
unbleached cotton.
Fig. 11: Reiswig, M. Self, 2023. Acrylic ink and paint, dyed fabric, cotton embroidery thread on
unbleached cotton.
Fig. 12: Reiswig, M. Exhumation. 2025. Mixed media. Video documentation.
Fig. 13: Reiswig, M. Fragmented Hive 2. 2025. Mixed media. Video documentation.
Fig. 14: Reiswig, M. Fragmented Hive 3, 2025. Mixed media.
Fig. 15: Reiswig, M. Fragmented Hive 4, 2025. Mixed media.
Fig. 16: Håkansson, H. Installation View of a Tree (Suspended). 2016. .
Fig. 17: Fig. 14: Paterson, K. Future Library. 2014-2114. Normarka.
Fig. 18: Lin, M. Ghost Forest. May 10-November 14, 2021. Madison Square Park

Reiswig 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract…………………………………………………………..……………………………….2
List of Figures……………………………………………….……………………………………3
Acknowledgements……………………….……………………….……………………….….…5
Introduction………………………….……………………….……………………….………….6
Methodology: Cyanotypes…………………………….……………………….………………...7
The Significance of Trees………………………….……………………….…………………….8
Context: Exhumation……………………….……………………….……………………….….9
Unearthing the Roots……………………….……………………….…………………….……16
Memory - A Lineage of Making……………………….……………………….………...……21
The Significance of “Home”: Context…………………….……………………...……26
The Significance of Bees: Context…..…………………….……………………….…..29
Exhumation & Return: Summary………………………….……………………….………....35
Preservation and Release……………………….……………………….……………………..38
Conclusion………………………….……………………….………………………….….……40
Reflection………………………………………………………………………………………..41
Works Cited………………………….……………………….…………………..………….….43
Works Referenced……………………….……………………….……………………….…….46

Reiswig 5
Acknowledgements
I grew up in a forest. Living between the central Kootenays in Balfour and 150 Mile
House in the Cariboo, the unceded and stolen traditional territories of the Sinixt, Ktunaxa, and
T’exelc, of the Secwepmec nation (Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce & Williams Lake
First Nation) I was always steps away from trees. I am currently living in T’kemlups,
Secwepmec territory, in what is now known as Kamloops, British Columbia. It is an urbanized
area on the unceded and traditional territories of the Secwepmec peoples, who have always been
the stewards of this land. As a result of living in a city, I am more distant from trees. Trees and
forests have always been way markers for me in creating artwork. I am of settler descent, from
Germany, Russia, and England. I acknowledge and appreciate the natural environment of these
lands, where I have had the privilege of residing for my whole life. I would also like to thank my
professors, supervisor, and administrators of Emily Carr University of Art + Design for their
support of the creation of this thesis research.

Reiswig 6
Introduction
As I have moved many times in my life, my personal idea of home has always been
connected to the land and nature, rather than to cities and towns. Land and nature are equally
important to my creative practice, and even from a young age, I preferred depicting and
photographing abstracted forms in nature over realism. By focusing on formal visual elements
(such as composition, pattern, line, tone, shape, texture etc.) I feel that my images are universal.
However, they also capture specific locations that are meaningful within my own memories and
past experiences. As the writer Lucy Lippard states,
[a]ll places exist somewhere between the inside and the outside views of them, the ways
in which they compare to, and contrast with, other places. A sense of place is a virtual
immersion that depends on lived experience and a topographical intimacy that is rare
today both in ordinary life and in traditional education fields” (Lippard, 33).
Lippard’s discussion of how one connects to place and home is apt in describing the thought that
home can be more of an idea than physical place. That is, her insights about how one is “between
the inside and outside views” of a place is an important framework that underpins my discussion
(below), as it aptly tracks my relationship to nature and my desire to make art that not only
mirrors an immersive and intimate lived experience, but also bonds me to the land and evokes
the feeling of being “at home”. My thesis work investigated the inner connections of these
sentiments of home through my relationship to trees and forests and my settler ancestors through
creating and making artworks with textiles and photography, and my relationship to the local
ecosystem through bees. I developed the methodology of “exhumation,” i.e. “unearthing” and
“making from memory” (both mine and the memories of other family members), through
research involving photography and discussions with my family.
I discuss my work in relation to the larger body of environmental artwork, specifically the
works of artists such as Katie Paterson and Kelly Richardson. I also discuss using land for

Reiswig 7
orchards by settlers on unceded territories. I reference scholars such as Robin Wall Kimmerer
and Leanne Betasamoske Simpson who inspired me to think anew about how one values nature
and to reflect more critically on the role of cultivating trees in settler claim making. Both sides of
my family had orchards, and although these settler orchards no longer exist, they continue to
impact and influence memories within my family. However, the importance of these memories
also feel dissonant when reconciling the orchards, as they were invasive trees occupying
Indigenous land. These two conversations co-exist and underpin my relationship to the
environment and begin with the dissection of my relationship with trees.
Methodology: Cyanotypes
My artwork comprises a mixed media approach using textiles and cyanotype, as well as
working with found objects. Cyanotypes are my main photographic medium as I have a lot of
formal training with many different types of analog photography. I wanted to use a photographic
medium that contrasted textiles in a way that complemented the organic qualities of the fabric
that I work with, in a similarly unconventional way. Textiles and fabric have a long history that is
interwoven with cultures and identities of all people and societies. They also play a similar role
within my art practice as referents to my family history. The way that I interact with textiles is
similar to my relationship with photography, i.e. as a medium that is expressive of durations of
time, of ancestral history, and memory. As photography is a form of drawing with light, it is not
simply a single moment that is captured as an image, but it is also redolent of a preserved span of
time. This matters to my overall interest in capturing sentiments of “home” within my art
practice.
​

Also, during the completion of my Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2020-2022, I began

developing a method of angling a mirror against the lens of the camera to obscure the horizon

Reiswig 8
line, creating a reflection of the sky or landscape back on itself. Mirror photography suits the
subjects of memory and recall due to the distorted quality that the mirrors give the images. I
began developing the method I used for mirror photography, to create canvases for my acrylic
paintings. This method of photography also allows me to reflect trees and forests in the images to
mimic a visual cross section of their root systems, through the reflections of the branches. As
will be discussed later, the concept of a mother tree and its vital root system is essential to the
messages embedded within Exhumations.
An important aspect of my methodology is also the notion of ‘exhumation’. Exhumation
speaks to the act of unearthing an actual dead cherry tree but also, importantly, rooting out family
histories and memories of places that are central to my artwork and my own personal sense of
home. I will discuss this notion of exhumation as a method at length below.
The Significance of Trees
As mentioned above, my childhood was mostly spent in the forests of the Cariboo and
Kootenay regions of British Columbia. Although I have always been drawn to incorporating
nature in my work, until now I have never taken the time to analyze my need to incorporate
certain natural elements. For example, over the past several years trees have been a central motif
in my photographic work and mixed media paintings and this has continued for MFA research. I
have narrowed the focus of my work to one specific Cherry tree, to explore the affinity of my
own personal connection with nature. This has allowed me to gain a stronger connection and
relationship to the natural environment and is significantly different from how I used to
incorporate nature within my art practice.
For example, in the past my work focused on elements of my own mental health, but I
expressed this by literally referencing the landscape (see Fig, 1)

Reiswig 9

Fig. 1: Reiswig M. I’m Here Too, 2022 (Component artwork) Mixed Media.
However, my relationship with the place where I live has changed over time to be less
emblematic of my internal landscape —i.e., my “internal view” (Lippard, 33)—
and more about my direct relationship with the flora and fauna of my home. My connection to
the land is further developed through the discussion of the methodology of exhumation.
Context: Exhumation
Exhumation is both an artwork and a process of personal reflection on the act of
exhuming a “body”. I will first explain the wider background to this artwork, then follow with a
more detailed discussion, drawing out comparisons with other artists, projects and two works of
literature.

Reiswig 10
In my earlier works (i.e., prior to commencing the MFA degree) trees were peripheral in
my work rather than the focus. However, with the switch to trees as the focus of my work I have
been increasingly interested in capturing the resiliency of nature. The work called Exhumation
started by salvaging the branches of a dead cherry tree from my partner’s yard, and
photographing the entire surface of the tree. As the central focus of my thesis installation, I
initially had wanted to use the entirety of the tree, including the root system flipped upside down
and suspended from the ceiling of the gallery space. I had originally planned to do this to reflect
compositional elements, similar to the aesthetics of my reflection photography (as described
above), erasing where the roots disappeared into the ground, and to express the idea of resiliency.
I then decided to create a replica of the Cherry tree instead, with a wireframe base of the same
dimensions. From my photographs of the bark, I then made cyanotypes to cover the outside of
the frame. My intention to replicate the cherry tree was to mimic a reflection of the orchards that
had once been, recognizing that their loss was not an altogether bad thing due to their location on
unceded territory, and by making way for local flora and fauna instead.

Fig. 2 Reiswig, M. Reflection: Monte Lake, 2025. Digital photography.

Reiswig 11
Resiliency is at the heart of Exhumation and this work was inspired by the example of the
forests’ regeneration that occurs after say, a wildfire. For example, there have been many fires in
the interior of BC and even though devastating, it is notable that the ecology of regeneration is
also at work and involves not just the trees but important insects such as bees.
Diane Dunaway, an apiary inspector and beekeeper at Soda Creek's Bee Happy Honey,
north of Williams Lake, said last year [2017] was the first time in 20 years that she was
without a surplus of honey. The bees refused to fly in the heavily smoky conditions so
they ate through a portion of their food supply leaving the colonies short on nutrients for
winter, she said. Dunaway estimates she suffered about an 80 percent loss of her colony
last year, but the honey bees that survived are a hardy bunch with genes that are valuable
to future generations (Dimoff, 2018).
The resiliency of the bees as a small, but integral part of an ecosystem had me consider the
Cherry tree I was researching in a different way. In addition, the more research I did about root
systems, I realized that representing the Cherry tree by extracting it and hanging it upside-down
in a gallery was not only harmful to the ecology of the tree, but it was also disrespectful on my
part. If I were to fully dig up the tree, I wouldn’t just be disturbing the natural processes of
decomposition of the tree, it would also disrupt the multitude of life present on, around, and
below the tree. However, Suzanne Simard’s work Finding the Mother Tree helped me to better
understand the complexity of interdependencies between organisms through her discussion of the
concept of a mother tree, as she says,
In connecting with all the trees of different ages, [the mother trees] can actually facilitate
the growth of these understory seedlings…The seedlings will link into the network of the
old trees and benefit from that huge uptake resource capacity. And the old trees would
also pass a little bit of carbon and nutrients and water to the little seedlings, at crucial
times in their lives, that actually help them survive (Simard, 2021).
In other words, there is a deep family relationship between individual trees in a forest and
learning about how trees help each other to thrive was instrumental in forcing me to take
responsibility for my own attitude and treatment of the Cherry tree, from seeing it as an artistic

Reiswig 12
material to one of a living being and part of a wider family. This shift –from seeing the tree as an
object to one of a living being – also forced me to reconsider how I went about representing the
tree. No longer could I uproot the Cherry tree put me on the path to creating a large body of work
based on concepts of place and “home” in such a way that honored the tree.
Being “at home” in nature, both allegorically through the subject of a tree and directly
through my physical engagement with the Cherry tree, has allowed me to consider the need to
regard nature, and more specifically the Cherry tree that I have been learning from, as worthy of
the respect I afford to the important people in my life. The research of Hubert Zapf has also
helped me to see how flora and fauna are on par with human beings. He discusses
“ecohumanism” and in his article, Posthumanism or Ecohumanism? Environmental Studies in
the Anthropocene, Hubert Zapf describes ecohumanism in the following way,
[Ecohumanism] addresses the challenge for sustainable futures by the global ecological
crisis and the derangement of traditional human scales of perception, time, space, and
agency. [He states that this is done not] “simply [by] overcoming or reject[ing] an
allegedly obsolete humanist past but rather the quest for a new, ecologically aware, and
transculturally open humanism that is both critical of historical shortcomings yet can also
profit from the rich proto-ecological archives of the humanist-literary tradition (Meireis
and Rippl, 2019 Schaumann and Buchholz, 2021).” (Zapf, 5-6).
This definition of ecohumanism clarified for me why I felt that digging up the cherry tree was
disrespectful, and helped solidify my intentions of creating art through the practice and guidance
of the methodology of “exhumation”: creating artwork in a context that equalizes the respect that
we afford to human bodies after death to plant life as well. In considering the cherry tree through
an ecohumanist lense, it is equivalently vile to unearth the cherry tree from the ground as it
would be to disturb a human corpse through exhumation. Through realizing nature as “a
someone” rather than “a something”, my artwork Exhumation has come to mean more to me than
simply unearthing a corpse, a living body in tree form. It is also an act of unearthing and

Reiswig 13
(re)learning how to be “at home”, which can be painful to do, and must be done with care and
intention. The issue of how we not only perceive nature but also value it, and specifically, trees,
is central to the evolution of my artwork. The following discussion will turn to the work of Kelly
Richardson, who is similarly concerned with capturing the entanglement of personal sentiment
with a commentary of colonial attitudes towards trees. The following will briefly explain
Richardson’s project and then turn to a comparison with my own artwork Exhumation.
c

Fig. 3: Richardson K. Pillars of Dawn (I). 2019. 4K video installation with audio.
https://kag.bc.ca/all-exhibitions/halcyon-fog

Reiswig 14
Kelly Richardson’s work Pillars of Dawn, a video installation, was part of the exhibition
Halcyon Fog, shown at the Kamloops Art Gallery in 2022. In the exhibition notes for Halcyon
Fog, the curator Charo Neville writes,
In this work each branch and the surrounding landscape is comprised of millions of
individualized crystals, resembling diamonds. Upon closer observation, the images
present a dystopic desert landscape where adverse environmental conditions have
crystallized the terrain. One crystal in each of the Pillars of Dawn landscapes represents
every species still alive today. In these fictitious landscapes, Richardson proposes a future
reality where each species has been transformed into pure carbon. With diamonds being
the most concentrated forms of pure carbon in the natural world as well as a signifier of
wealth, Richardson asks us to again consider what we value. (Neville, 2022)
Pillars of Dawn (I) presents the viewer with a landscape where only diamonds remain, rather
than the diversity of life that we currently have. People often would rather spend their money on
diamonds, or other expensive equivalents, rather than maintaining the diversity of life; hence,
there is a misplacement of value. For Richardson, by depicting crystals in the tree, denoting the
number of species that are still alive presently, it harkens to the idea that nothing is stable in
nature, and that without any actions taken to mitigate the impact of humans on the environment,
the futures of those species are precarious. (Neville, 2022). By comparison, in Exhumation, my
aim was to draw attention to the interdependencies among living bodies – human, tree, insect,
etc. – by replicating the form of the one actual Cherry tree and literally copying its surface via
sunlight and photosensitive paper.
​

Prior to engaging with Pillars of Dawn (I), I had not considered the idea of combining

my personal interests in landscape with narratives of apocalyptic environments and ideas of
misplaced value. For example, most people see a dead tree as either firewood, or a form of waste
or garbage meant to be discarded. When people cut down a tree, they often only use a portion of
the tree and even the parts that are used, like pulp into paper, and wood for boards, are treated as

Reiswig 15
disposable items - as “garbage” - instead of the value they once held as precious and respected
non-human beings. This shows that how a tree is valued is determined by one’s memories,
culture, education, personal experiences, and perspective.
​

Tracing these differing perspectives and attitudes to trees in art and literature was key to

my own troubling of how to approach working with the dead Cherry tree. An example of this
that I found powerful was the science-fiction novel, Roadside Picnic (1972), by Arkady and
Boris Sturgatsky. In their novel, they illustrate differing perspectives on what is “garbage”. In the
story, humans are fascinated by remnants left behind by aliens. People study the detritus of the
aliens with a scientific thoroughness, hypothesizing about the use of the artifacts. A black market
emerges, thus illustrating the phenomenon of economic and cultural value systems. This occurs
even though no one truly knows the original purpose and intentions of the materials. The
question is asked whether or not the objects are a powerful technology, or simply the scraps —
i.e., the “garbage” – left behind by aliens on their ‘roadside picnic’ as they travel on their way to
somewhere else. The following passage captures these thematic tensions:
A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into
the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor
radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they
leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep
out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters
strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of
course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire,
cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins,
faded flowers picked in another meadow (Strugatsky, 1972).
There is an element of danger in sifting through the leftovers of an entity's ‘picnic’. This presents
in the form of scientists attempting to control the danger they do not understand by restricting
access to the areas where the alien detritus has been discovered, which in turn the technology is

Reiswig 16
(irresponsibly) sold in black markets, as humanity is often wont to do with things it does not
understand. What is discardable to some is irreplaceable to others.
This novel also made me consider how different people consider the use of materials, and
more importantly what our “garbage” is considered to be used for by other species on Earth. That
is, how does the “garbage” of our own ‘roadside picnics’ interact with and impact other living
beings on earth; animal, plant, and the ecological pockets newly formed through the myriad of
entanglements of human and more-than-human encounters? Indeed how does a dead tree come
to be seen as “garbage”. An answer may be found in the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. In
this work Kimmerer notes that “trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly
how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one
happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together” (Kimmerer, 2013). The idea that
individual trees are in fact, members of a group, that they are responsive to each other, “starving
or feasting together” etc., (15), put me on a path to, again, rethink how to approach my dead
Cherry tree.
Unearthing the Roots
In reconsidering my approach to the themes in my work, I also wanted to focus on addressing the
historic planting of cherry orchards on stolen Indigenous lands. My grandparents' cherry orchard
no longer exists due to urban development, but I continue to contend with the fact that it was
planted on unceded territory. Planting orchards was a mode of making claims to the land for my
ancestors and Exhumation is therefore an attempt to address this primal form of ownership. The
dead Cherry trees I reference in Exhumation are shells of memories that are important while still
reconciling with their existence as a part of these settler orchards and consequently the damage

Reiswig 17
they did to the land. In Eva Mackey’s Unsettled Expectations: Uncertainty, Land and
Decolonization, she asks, “[how did the vast lands of Canada and the U.S. come to be owned and
controlled by colonial powers, and not the previously free and independent nations that lived
here before 1492? ” (Mackey, 42).
The concept of ownership, and that the landscape of North America were seen as a blank
slate (i.e. known as terra nullius) to be “developed” by settlers for personal and political gain is
one that continues to shape attitudes to land. That Indigenous People have to fight for
acknowledgment of their stewardship is another layer that I often reflect on within my art
practice. It also informs Exhumation. That is, Exhumation is also a reflection of my own
presence on stolen land and in the process of making the artwork, my desire to move forward to
a future of shared responsibility takes on new resonances.
Mackey goes on to discuss say that “[o]ne of the reasons that the idea of land rights for
Indigenous people is often responded to in contentious and even violent ways is that it disrupts
unquestioned European assumptions about property, assumptions that have been developed
through liberal political theory, social practice and law over centuries, and are based on a settled
agricultural or commercial society.” (Mackey, 43) This point about stewardship, and connections
to the land and place, is also discussed in Leanne Betsamosoke Simpson’s article, “Land as
Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation.” about stewardship and
connection with land and place, and is also important to reference when investigating this topic.
She shares a Nishnaabeg story about Kwezens, “little woman”, tapping sap from a maple tree,
where a young woman has “spent seven years immersed in a nest of Nishnaabeg intelligence.
She understands the importance of observation and learning from our animal teachers, when she
watches the squirrel so carefully and then mimics its actions” to tap the maple tree for sap.

Reiswig 18
(Simpson, 6) She also points out “Indigenous education is not Indigenous or education from
within our intellectual traditions unless it comes through the land, unless it occurs in an
Indigenous context using Indigenous processes” (Simpson, 9). While I can attempt to connect
with the important trees in my life, I admit that there is dissonance between the invasively
planted orchards of my ancestors, and the stolen lands they inhabited. I can connect with them
over time, through memory, discussion, and records, but to be truly “engaged in land as
pedagogy as a life practice [it] means coming face-to-face with settler colonial authority,
surveillance and violence because, in practice, it places Indigenous bodies between settlers and
their money” (Simpson 19). While I can celebrate the importance of the trees within my family's
history and memory, I also continually remember and acknowledge that the orchards were acts of
settlement and Indigenous dispossession, of appropriation and colonization. The act of
researching my family history and relationship to orchards, and my own personal journey in
rethinking my relationship to trees, forests and the land, was yet another form of exhumation. For
these reasons, the inspiration for several of the tree elements in Exhumation reference family
photographs and specific trees through time, and for me the installation holistically represents
this internal exhumation.

Reiswig 19

Fig. 4: Reiswig, M. Planning photo for Exhumation, 2024. Digital photography.
As mentioned above, the beginning of the exhumation process started with my relationship to a
Cherry tree. In this image of the cross-section (see Fig 4) I also had not noticed the cricket sitting
on the side of the tree. Although the tree was dead there was still so much life existing on its
surface. Digging up the tree and its root system had disturbed the lives of other beings that I did
not notice or did not take the time to see. However, in my current approach to Exhumation – as
an artwork and an action— I now understand that this is an act of unearthing ideas and thoughts
left otherwise unnoticed. It was appropriate then to use cyanotype to execute this work as not all
the details of the original object (the tree and its life forms) carry forward to the finished
cyanotype, and often smaller details like the cricket, are blurred and faded. The cyanotypes
operate not only as metaphors for “not seeing” but also, you need to look longer at a cyanotype

Reiswig 20
image than a digital photograph – to scrutinize it carefully –for your mind to fill in the logical
details and placement of information. This act of scrutiny is similar to what happens to a memory
when it is recalled; each time some of the details and information of a memory fade and distort.
​

In summary, the process of creating Exhumation transitioned as my understanding and

vision for the artwork framed (and reframed) my comprehension of what the act of exhuming
could be. Through spending time with the tree, photographing the bark, and then noticing details
of life overlooked, it affected my decision to dig up the whole tree to create the pair of sculptures
shown in the final version of Exhumation. Through reflecting on the insights of Simard, Wall
Kimmerer, and Richardson, and their respect for the lives of all non-human beings, my
methodology of exhumation began to take on new meaning. That is, the aim of creating the
replica sculptures was to evoke the memory of the tree rather than its physical and metaphorical
body being placed within the gallery space.
​

The display of Exhumation for my final thesis show incorporated 20-30 ponderosa pine

saplings. They were installed in the exhibition space, buried in soil and mulch, to give the
impression that they were growing in the ground. I chose ponderosa pine as they are a tree
species indigenous to the Northwest. They were situated in intervals around the sculptures
(replicas of trees). The pattern of mulch connecting the saplings to the sculptures simulated the
concept of roots connecting a mother tree to saplings. There were some saplings that did not
survive the installation process as well as others, and these saplings were placed further from the
sculptural mother trees, symbolizing the severing of knowledge given from the mother tree to the
sapling. This is much like the breakdown of sharing intergenerational knowledge and memory,
for future generations to learn from and preserve. The intention was to bring these saplings into
conversation, so to speak, with the sculptures as witnesses to a celebration of life, rather than of

Reiswig 21
death. Inspired by the concept of a mother tree, the central cherry trees, although “uprooted”, act
as a nurturing figure of the ponderosa pine saplings. After the exhibition, the saplings were
offered to members of my cohort, family and friends. They were asked to plant the trees with
care and thoughtfulness, and to see the saplings as a contribution to the rebirth and growth as a
form of reclamation. There are ten groups of 3 trees, each set symbolizing one member of my
cohort. This number was chosen to represent the idea of community creation, or creative
evocation of home, during the program. Additionally, each group of trees had three trees within
each set, representing the community of each person, their own interconnected web of support
and knowledge.
​

Alongside creating Exhumation, I worked with the branches that had been cut off the

cherry tree and incorporated them into a series discussed later called Fragmented Hive (which I
will discuss further below). This was done to further explore the relationship between the tree as
a body and home for other forms of life; specifically the relationships between trees, bees, and
the urban environments within which I reside. However, the following will outline how my
sentiments of “home” relate to my art practice.
Memory - A Lineage of Making
Some of my earliest memories are of creating. I have a distinct memory of working on a
small cross stitch of a black cat drinking from a bowl of milk. My interest in visual art and being
creative extends to things learned from family’s hobbies. My mother has a long-standing sewing
and textiles practice, while also being interested in other forms of art. Hobbies are therefore
deeply entangled in my family history. Despite this, I have always struggled with reconciling my
interest and experience in craft with my activities in fine art. My other interests in hobby and
craft extend to the idea of the process of learning a new craft, and how the crafter needs to see

Reiswig 22
the beauty in not only mastering a craft, but also the results of learning as well. In the early
phases of my research for the MFA program, I came across this quote by Hannah Höch;
[e]mbroidery is very closely related to painting…[i]t is an art and ought to be treated like
one even if thousands upon thousands of sweet female hands - displaying scant skill, no
taste or colour sense, and not a hint of inspiration - ‘mis’handle quantities of good
materials as foolishly as possible and call the results ‘embroidery’ ( Höch, 72).
I had always associated her work with the political collages that are celebrated today as visual
acts of resistance. I knew little of her embroidery beyond it being the day's work that supported
her artistic practice (Hirschl Orley, 2024), and did not identify that these artworks could mean
the same thing. I was therefore inspired to consider the idea of ‘process as the artwork itself’ in a
new way, which gave me new insight into how I could consider craft and textiles as part of
Exhumation.
Elissa Auther’s String, Felt , Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art
introduced me to the idea that “[a]part from associations of weaving with hobbyism or women’s
work, fiber gained new visibility…in the 1960s and 1970s outside the high art world in a variety
of other social and artistic contexts and practices that fostered the revivals of the traditional crafts
of hand-weaving, quilting, embroidery, dyeing, knotting, and basketry” (Auther, 25). Textiles are
a powerful medium for conveying organic form and figural qualities. This allows the versatility
of delving into its possibilities as a heritage based medium (i.e., as a medium for capturing my
own heritage and familial connection to fiber arts). Equally, an appreciation of textiles can be
seen in exhibitions like Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art where the curators
“showcased 50 international, intergenerational artists using textiles to communicate vital ideas
about power, resistance and survival. From intimate hand-crafted pieces to monumental
sculptural installations, these works offered narratives of violence, imperialism and exclusion
alongside stories of resilience, love and hope” (Barbican, 2024). Another significant exhibition

Reiswig 23
that demonstrates the historical contribution to contemporary art practices is Woven Histories:
Textiles and Modern Abstraction. This exhibition “challenges long-held notions of the weave as
a function of textile alone, exploring the many forms both warp and weft have taken when
explored by abstract artists over the past 100 years” (MoMA, 2025).
As discussed above, the emphasis of my work now is to identify and express my
relationship with my local environment through trees, forests, and bees, and to continue
developing themes of “home” through visual expression, but to also do this by using various
textiles and processes. Textiles are malleable material, able to be cut, torn, dyed, molded and
transformed. There is also the possibility of layering textiles to capture translucent qualities that
evoke ideas of memory and personal histories. Similar qualities are captured in the artwork
below (as seen in Fig 5).

Fig. 5: Reiswig, M. The Workers’ Dance, 2023-4. Dyed cotton and cotton thread.
The process of physically learning a new skill is an important recurrent interest in my
artwork. I have a background as a high school art teacher in the British Columbian educational

Reiswig 24
system and part of my philosophy as an educator is emphasizing the value of the learning process
over the end goal. I confronted this personally when I began working on cyanotypes and textiles
sculptures to create the trees in Exhumation (see Fig. 6).

Fig. 6: Reiswig, M. Exhumation, 2025. Mixed Media.

Reiswig 25

Fig. 7: Reiswig, M. Surface detail of Exhumation, 2025. Mixed Media.

Fig. 8: Reiswig, M. Surface detail of Exhumation, 2025. Mixed Media.

Reiswig 26
Sculpture is a new field of inquiry for me. Working in three dimensions is a challenge. It became
an interesting access point for me to incorporate other mediums I am more familiar with, like
photography and textiles. For example, I attached tea dyed fabric onto a wire frame that was
created to the scale of the cherry tree. This became a meditative process of the exhumation of the
memory of the tree, whom I spent time with. While I was working on this sculpture from my
memory of the tree in the studio (fig. 6), the tree was simultaneously decomposing in the yard.
This creative process of deconstructing my own creative methods, to immerse myself in
relearning a new skill, was important for getting across my ideas of “home” with the use of
textiles.
The Significance of “Home”: Context
An important source of inspiration for my work was a research trip to southern Alberta. It
provided me with new insights into my family history. It was a form of familial memory
exhumation. I took this research trip accompanied by my mother, to photograph and create work
focused on my grandfather’s family history. Not only did the route we traveled included
locations that had been important in my family’s history, but also, I was able to trace and map
new memories of different moments in my family history. Learning more, by traveling to and
through some of the places referenced in family stories, visiting grave sites in the town where my
grandfather grew up, tracing individual buildings, or sites of former buildings, that he would
have visited, and writing about my family was a way of weaving together thoughts, ideas, and
influences in the development of my own creative process. For me these locations had only
existed in stories, so physically standing in the places my grandfather may have stood literally
and figuratively grounded the stories for me.

Reiswig 27
From this experience, I developed a body of artworks. Unearthed (Fig. 7) is a cyanotype
on fabric of the town of Bellevue, Alberta. I took the picture while looking at buildings
referenced in family histories. Sky (Fig. 8) and Self (Fig. 9)were internal acts of rumination on
the research that I had done on my family lineage. Each artwork also involved the repetitive act
of stitching and was a way to capture the process and pattern of learning. Stitching is also a
meditative practice and while working on Unearthed I was transported through time, reflecting
on the lives of my family members and the places that they inhabited – places I would never
know in the same way that they had.

Fig. 9: Reiswig, M. Unearthed, 2023. Cyanotype, acrylic ink, cotton embroidery thread on
unbleached cotton.

Reiswig 28

Fig. 10: Reiswig, M. Sky, 2023. Natural plant dye, dyed fabric, cotton embroidery thread on
unbleached cotton.

Fig. 10: Reiswig, M. Self, 2023. Acrylic ink and paint, dyed fabric, cotton embroidery thread on
unbleached cotton.

Reiswig 29
The Significance of Bees: Context
While working with the branches of the cherry tree and textile material for Exhumation. I
was drawn to the shape of a hexagon through its connection to bees and the storage of honey.
The act of sewing, and working with the hexagon, resonated with the themes in my practice; a
sense of place (home), family memory, and deep ecological time (via trees and forests). My work
has always been centered on the natural spaces where I live. In urban environments, it is
sometimes difficult to have a connection to nature. Although I grew up in a rural setting, most of
my adult life has been spent living in urban settings. As a result, it is important to me to connect
with and focus on the natural spaces I have lived in as an anchor for my work, so that I and my
work can convey the feeling of being “at home”.
Equally, for me, bees are symbolic of the resiliency of nature and the impacts of
humanity on my environment, and as such, my aim was to capture this symbolism of their
resiliency in my work. For example, in my artworks called the Fragmented Hives series (fig. 10
and 11), I again used cyanotypes, but hexagonal mirrors serve as both evocations of hives and
bees, and are suspended from the bones (branches) of a tree they once pollinated. I used
cyanotypes of a local forest, devastated by a fire in recent years. I made the cyanotypes in winter
to further a feeling of isolation and endings. My aim was to provoke the viewer, to remind them
of the importance of a forest, but also to be aware of one’s use of environmental resources,
consumption, and the daily damage we do to the environment. Harkening back to the work
Richardson’s Pillars of Dawn, it’s important to remember that the existence of a species is
fragile. All life is as precious as it is precarious, and should be treated with care, and protected
through fostering resiliency. The bees are a good example of this; at a precipice of existing, but
persevering nonetheless.

Reiswig 30
​

Within my practice, it is also important to me to reflect on resiliency in my local

community, as there has been so much ecological devastation here over the past two decades.
Some of this resiliency has become evident in efforts made by the City of Kamloops as well as
citizens of the city when Kamloops was named British Columbia’s first Bee City.
The City of Kamloops mission statement, “Making Kamloops Shine” would not be
possible without the help of our pollinator friends. Pollinators are vital to a healthy and
resilient ecosystem. The conservation of pollinators is critical to the sustainability of
Kamloops’ natural areas and urban gardens. Certain pollinator species have been
determined to be in decline due to habitat loss, climate change, pesticide use, and
disease/pests. A diverse and resilient pollinator community is a key component of a
sustainable city for us all. (Bee City Canada, 2025)
While bees are pollinators, and need plants to survive, so do the trees that they pollinate, which
are also a primary home for their hives.
The presence and importance of bees in our environment is easily overlooked by
humanity but not being mindful, on a daily basis, is also a form of intentional ignorance. This
often brings me back to work that has always inspired me to action through my practice. My
practice of confronting species loss by comparing it to fading and forgotten forms of craft, forces
the viewer to consider what aspects of one’s own life serves as forms of intentional ignorance. I
draw inspiration for this type of mindful work in practice from works of fiction that serve a
similar purpose for their readers. One short story that has highlighted the concept of intentional
ignorance the most for me has been “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K Leguin.
It is a short story about a city of eternal happiness where people seemingly have no cares or
troubles. However, upon reaching an age of adulthood, one learns that all the sadness of the city
is given to one child, so that everyone else in the city can be eternally happy. As an adult one
must collude in sustaining the child’s eternal sadness in order to be able to then continue one’s
own happiness. As Leguin writes, “To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in

Reiswig 31
Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the
chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed” (Leguin, 335).
So people choose to leave the city rather than live with the awareness that their happiness is at
the expense of a child’s unending sadness. I see in this story a wider parallel: this sadness is
similar to how our forests, trees, and natural environment are like the child living in the city of
Omelas: feeling and expressing the pain at the expense of every responsible adult on earth. We
are aware of the harm we are causing, however for eternal happiness, humanity is willing to pay
the cost. With regard to my own work, in the Fragmented Hive series, my aim was to position
viewers as a citizen of Omelas, and to confront the moral challenge of one’s willful ignorance.
My intention of the viewing experience was such that I wanted the viewer to enter the
space of Exhumation coming first upon the dying saplings, their mulch roots, severed from the
mother tree sculpture in the centre of the work. Then, as the viewer moves further through the
installation, they encounter healthier saplings, in close proximity to the central mother tree
sculptures. This is meant to represent that the closer that one is to their community, their
memories, and their heritage, the more metaphorically grounded. They are in a successful and
healthy present, through the nurturing of their own community, or “mother tree” system.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNJG77zJrn0/?igsh=azliMW9tbnhsanpm
Fig. 12: Reiswig, M. Fragmented Hive 1. 2025. Mixed media. Video documentation.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNJGzljJY2t/?igsh=M29ubHYwZnkwOXR3
Fig. 13: Reiswig, M. Exhumation. 2025. Mixed media. Video documentation.

Reiswig 32

Fig. 13: Reiswig, M. Fragmented Hive 2. 2025. Mixed media.

Reiswig 33

Fig. 14: Reiswig, M. Fragmented Hive 3. 2025. Mixed media.

Reiswig 34

Fig. 15: Reiswig, M. Fragmented Hive 4. 2025. Mixed media.

This lesson also applies to me. To begin addressing my own intentional ignorance I have
been looking at my consumption recently, both in my creative and artistic practice, and my
activities of daily living. One of the most memorable things I have ever bought second hand was
a bag of fabric squares. They were all different, and placing them on a table, one could see that
all the different scraps were remnants of other projects. However, each piece was treated with
care. They were carefully cut, sewn, ironed, before being donated. This act of being careful is

Reiswig 35
something that I continue to strive for as a methodology. In a sense, my methodology is also a
form of making anew. As Wall Kimmerer states;
In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the
human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants
at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the
younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to
live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for
guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example.
They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure
things out. (Kimmerer, 2013)
I have a responsibility to the give and take of living in balance, and to continue to listen when
being asked to learn.
Exhumation & Return: Summary
During the process of creating Exhumation and the Fragmented Hive series, I have found
ways to talk about my aesthetic connection to the land. My interest in learning about the land has
also deepened from reading Indigenous scholars, such as Simpson and Wall Kimmerer. They
have helped me to consider my own layered history and responsibility to the land through the
process of making art.
My original plan for Exhumation was to display cut, burned, trees in the installation
rather than the saplings. However while working on the piece, I realized that I needed to source
the trees ethically, so I researched places to do so, and asked many questions about where and
how this could be done. Eventually I acquired a firewood permit for dead and fallen trees from
the Ministry of Forests. I also had conversations with my professors, peers, and family about the
ethics of using these trees in the installation, as the central cherry tree would be missing due to
my considering it a respectful act not to use the literal tree in the work. This led me to consider
that Exhumation could be considered a ‘celebration of life’ rather than an end of one.

Reiswig 36
I also had many conversations with family while working on Exhumation. By
photographing, and researching, as well as working with remnants of the tree, I was reminded of
the familial connection I have specifically to cherry trees. My maternal grandfather had a cherry
orchard while my mother was growing up. When I asked my mother for a reference photo to use
in Exhumation, she told me that every year her family would take photos in the orchard, and that
as she grew up she could witness her growth and development alongside that of the orchard. I am
still sitting with and learning about my own relationship to a place that I only briefly remember
from my childhood. I am continually affected by the physicality of a place, even when those
places have changed beyond recognition. In Suzanne Simard’s work Finding the Mother Tree,
she references her own personal lineage and connection to landscape and specific forests.
Simard’s research has helped me to understand my own personal relationship to landscape and
specific trees.
I counted the rings, marking each decade with a pencil—the tree was a couple hundred
years old. Over twice the number of years my family had lived in these forests. How had
the trees weathered the changing cycles of growth and dormancy, and how did this
compare to the joys and hardships my family had endured in a fraction of the
time?....These trees persisted through climatic upheavals, suffocating competition, and
ravaging fire, insect, or wind disruptions, far eclipsing the colonialism, world wars, and
the dozen or so prime ministers my family had lived through. They were ancestors to my
ancestors. (Simard, 2021)
I have been intrigued by the notion of trees being personal ancestors. With regard to the specific
cherry tree that I have been working with, I have a connection to this tree the way Simard speaks
about the forest. I felt the same way during the fire in Kamloops in 2021, on the last night of the
heat dome, with the temperature at its hottest. I had heard stories from others about what it felt
like to see a golden-red glow on the edge of the hilltop near your home. The suspended cherry

Reiswig 37
tree referenced in Exhumation stands as a visual metaphor of my own relationship to climate
change and a deep sense of mourning.

Fig. 16: Håkansson, H. Installation View of a Tree (Suspended). 2016.
https://www.berlinartlink.com/2016/07/22/nature-meditating-on-scientific-constructs-an-i
nterview-with-henrik-ha%CC%8Akansson/
Works like Henrik Håkansson’s Installation View of a Tree (Suspended) considers a
collective mourning for specific elements of nature. When asked in an interview, Håkansson
described his relationship to nature as;
I live within what is described as our natural world, a giant pattern of fragmented
environments that create my living situation. I try to connect to the outdoors and to other
animals, a bird or a bee. Observing moments, trying to understand or to reflect the
patterns that generate an eventual expression or what this communication is all about. For
me, it’s all based on a personal experience in reaction to political situations and
ever-changing fashion and developments within society. (Bardos, 2016)

Reiswig 38

Preservation and Release
Although my early plans for Exhumation incorporated the use of trees that had died in the
fires of the past few years, I ended up wanting to stage Exhumation as a ‘celebration of life’
rather than a funeral. I wanted to inspire the hope that I still see in the landscape regenerating;
that in the seasons that follow a fire the burned trees look like brushstrokes of soot on an
otherwise green hillside.
In her work Future Library, the artist Katie Paterson also considers the concept of
celebrating the purpose of a forest to communicate change to and for the future.

One thousand trees have been planted in Normarka…just outside of Oslo, which will
supply the paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in one hundred years’
time. Between now and then, one writer every year will contribute a text, with the
writings held in trust, unpublished, until the year 2114. (Future Library, 2014-2114).

Fig. 17: Paterson, K. Future Library. 2014-2114. Normarka.
https://www.futurelibrary.no/#/the-artwork

Reiswig 39
Future Library informed many aspects of Exhumation, as it considers a confrontation with the
devastation of the present, while looking to the possibility of healing in the future.
Future library has nature, the environment at its core — and involves ecology, the
interconnectedness of things, those living now and still to come. It questions the present
tendency to think in short bursts of time, making decisions only for us living now. The
timescale is one hundred years, not vast in cosmic terms. However, in many ways the
human timescale of one hundred years is more confronting. It is beyond many of our
current lifespans, but close enough to come face to face with it, to comprehend and
relativise. (Paterson, 2014-2114)
Exhumation asks the viewer to participate as a witness to harms done, confronting one’s own
actions, and one’s own relationship with nature, both in one’s own memory and in the present.
However, the consequences of actions not taken are also an aspect of Exhumation, as informed
by works such as Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest.
In nature, a ghost forest is the evidence of a dead woodland that was once vibrant.
Atlantic white cedar populations on the East Coast are endangered by past logging
practices and threats from climate change, including extreme weather events that yield
salt water intrusion, wind events, and fire. The trees in Ghost Forest were all slated to be
cleared as part of regeneration efforts in the fragile ecosystem of the Pine Barrens of New
Jersey. (Madison Square Park, 2021)

Fig. 18: Lin, M. Ghost Forest. May 10-November 14, 2021. Madison Square Park.
https://madisonsquarepark.org/art/exhibitions/maya-lin-ghost-forest/
​

Reiswig 40
Akin to the sapling trees in Exhumation, the trees in Ghost Forest stand as witnesses to
inaction. Although the sapling trees in Exhumation, and the fragments of the cherry trees in
Fragmented Hive have been removed from their natural environment, they are also relics that
remind the viewer that they are standing in what was once part of a forest, something that was
alive, and this allows the viewer to reflect on their own action and inaction in relation to the
natural world.
Conclusion
Throughout my research, I investigated the ways in which my artistic practice, grounded
in place and relationships with the land, challenges one's actions in relation to one’s local
environment. I did this by developing a body of work that examined my relationship to a specific
cherry tree, and then troubled that relationship through the methodology of exhumation: i.e. an
unearthing and evaluating my own memories, familial history and lineage. My material research
(use of textiles, sewing, etc.) also prompted me to reflect on the role that my family’s hobbies
have played in influencing my aesthetic sensibility, and my connection with the land, place, and
the making of “home”. This was done to explore the research question: how can one utilize
place-based, nature inspired, practices to create visual depictions of what feeling at home can be
like and what it can become in the future.
Throughout the MFA program I have also learned about ways to begin reconciling my
family’s settler experiences and memories of place with my experiences of current environmental
disasters. I have also found productive ways to move forward through my art practice and will
continue to combine photographic techniques and textile materials to create mixed media
installation work that explores themes of memory and a sense of place. Creativity and connection
to one another and the land is the way in which I can begin to move toward healing, while

Reiswig 41
continually acknowledging a connection to a collective past. While my research adds to the body
of ecohumanist artwork, it does so in ways that are limited by the specificity in which they were
created: focused on my own personal relationship to a specific tree, lineage of making, and
learning, to (re)consider nature as a multitude of interconnected autonomous, living beings. In
the future I plan to broaden this inquiry, while still considering a local audience as participants,
and to develop collaborations with local artists and First Nations peoples, to broaden the scope
and impact of the research.
I need to again acknowledge and thank the T’kemlups te Secwepmec people. This land,
now known as Kamloops, is where I have had the privilege and honour of living, creating, and
working. These privileges have come at a great cost to the Secwepmec people, living as I do on
their stolen land. As a settler I will never fully be able to connect to or completely grasp a
connection to the land. However, the only reason that I am able to create and research in such an
unbelievably beautiful place is because of the continued land stewardship of the Secwepmec
people.
Reflection
​

Preparing for and participating in the exhibition was both challenging and rewarding. I

was unable to attend the full month of the residency, and went back and forth between Kamloops
and Vancouver during the installation, exhibition, and deinstallation process. Due to these
circumstances, I was very thoughtful in the ways in which I prepared for the installation process,
booking appointments with the very helpful Emily Carr installation technicians. I had a very
clear idea of how I wanted the installation process to work, and how the final installation would
look.

Reiswig 42
​

After the completion of the installation, the general feedback I received was that some of

the visual decisions turned out in a way that was unexpected by those who had read drafts of this
thesis supporting paper. This was an insight that was helpful to the further editing of this paper,
and in preparation for the thesis defence presentation. I was able to consider how I articulated
and communicated both visual decisions and meaning in regards to Fragmented Hives I-IV and
Exhumation. During the thesis defence, I received further feedback in this regard, that I was able
to orally communicate aesthetic compositional decisions about the meaning of these artworks,
but these aspects of the thesis were less clear in the thesis support paper. This was the main focus
of my edits, in addition to careful selection and editing of my documentation. The documentation
is vitally important to the continued life of Fragmented Hives I-IV and Exhumation, due to the
nature of the ways in which they were installed: they will be difficult to reinstall given future
opportunity in a similar way. Overall, I am satisfied with my edits, and am proud of the
accomplishment of having participated in the thesis exhibition, and the opportunity to reflect on
the experience in a thorough manner.

Reiswig 43
Works Cited
Author, Elissa. String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art. University
of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2010.
Barbican. Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art. Tue 13 Feb-Sun 26 May 2024.
https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2024/event/unravel-the-power-and-politics-of-text
iles-in-art
Bardos, Alice. Nature // Meditating on Scientific Constructs: An Interview with Henrik
Håkansson. Berline Art Link. 2016.
https://www.berlinartlink.com/2016/07/22/nature-meditating-on-scientific-constructs-an-i
nterview-with-henrik-ha%CC%8Akansson/
Davies, Dave & Suzanne Simard. “Trees Talk To Each Other. 'Mother Tree' Ecologist Hears
Lessons For People, Too.” Fresh Air. May 4 2021.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/04/993430007/trees-talk-to-each-other
-mother-tree-ecologist-hears-lessons-for-people-too. Accessed 7 October 2024.
Dimoff, “Only the strong survived: resilient bees to pass strong genes onto next generation.”
CBC News. April 12, 2018.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/only-the-strong-survived-resilient-bees
-to-pass-strong-genes-onto-next-generation-1.4781868.

Håkansson, Henrik. Installation View of a Tree (Suspended). 2016.
https://www.berlinartlink.com/2016/07/22/nature-meditating-on-scientific-constructs-an-i
nterview-with-henrik-ha%CC%8Akansson/

Reiswig 44

Höch, Hannah et al. “On Embroidery”. Hannah Höch. Whitechapel Gallery & Prestel, London.
2014. 72.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the
Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions, 2013.
Leguin, Ursula K. “Those Who Turn Away from Omelas.” The Unreal and the Real. First Saga
Press, 2016. Originally published 1973. 329-336.
Lin, Maya. Ghost Forest. May 10-November 14, 2021. Madison Square Park.
https://madisonsquarepark.org/art/exhibitions/maya-lin-ghost-forest/
Lippard, Lucy R. The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society. New York,
The New Press, 1997.
Mackey, Eva. Unsettled Expectations: Uncertainty, Land and Decolonization. Fernwood
Publishing, Halifax & Winnipeg, 2016.
Madison Square Park. “Maya Lin: Ghost Forest”. Madison Square Park.
https://madisonsquarepark.org/art/exhibitions/maya-lin-ghost-forest/. Accessed 27 April
2025.
Neville, Charo. “Halcyon Fog.” Central Gallery, Kamloops Art Gallery. January 22 to April 2
2022. https://kag.bc.ca/all-exhibitions/halcyon-fog
Neville, Charo. “Glacial Resonance.” Central Gallery, Kamloops Art Gallery. January 21 to April
1 2023.
https://kag.bc.ca/all-exhibitions/walde#:~:text=Requiem%20for%20a%20Glacier%20is,P
urcell%20Mountains%20in%20southeastern%20BC

Reiswig 45
Paterson, Katie. Future Library. 2014-2114. https://www.futurelibrary.no/#/the-artwork
Richardson, Kelly. Pillars of Dawn. 4K video installation with audio, 24 minute seamless loop.
2019. https://kag.bc.ca/all-exhibitions/halcyon-fog
Simard, Suzanne. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. Penguin
Random House. 2021.
Simpson, Leanne Betasamoske. “Land as Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious
transformation.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3:3 2014. 1-25.
https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22170
Strugatsky, Arkady & Boris. Roadside Picnic. Translated by Olena Bormashenko. Chicago
Review Press, 1972.
“T’exelc.” Williams Lake First Nation. https://www.wlfn.ca/ Accessed 1 October 2024.
Orley, Heidi Hirschl . “Hannah Höch German, 1889–1978”. MoMA.
https://www.moma.org/artists/2675. Accessed 7 October 2024.
“This land. Their land.” Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce.
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Reiswig 46
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