Nancy Fuerth
Wish for Mother Tree
Follow:
Project description
Starting at around 500 BC cultures would practise rituals to honour trees as they believed that trees could be ladders between worlds, sources of life and wisdom and can embody deities. However, over time this intangible spirit has been devalued and we have forgotten the majesty of them and started to exploit them for our own human use. While yes, in the 21st century, we have made great strides in understanding tree’s planetary value amidst the climate emergency and nature’s general benefit to our health and wellbeing, we have neglected the honouring of these majestic beings. Could the reinfusion of tree’s folkloric practices but in a contemporary manner be the answer as to how we can ensure the longevity of trees survival and thus their robust micro-habitats and historical significance?
Wish For Mother Tree is the visual and physical manifestation of the metaphorical contemporary writings of forester Peter Woollehben, theorist Emmanuele Coccia, and ecologist Suzanne Simard who coined the term Mother Tree for the oldest trees within the community, and whose writings have started to foster a greater sensitivity and empathy towards nature.
Wish for Mother Tree is then the re-imagining the Historic Estate Park archetype both visually and symbolically by primarily focusing on ancient Mother Trees as a means of re-establishing an empathetic kinship between humans and nature, resulting in a new egalitarian landscape typology I am calling ethicalscapes - public spaces that utilise design elements that foster an atmospheric experience of respect, accessibility and safety of both mind and body for all.
The Tools
Five tools have been developed in order to help other individuals turn their historic landscape into an ethicalscape. To note, some of these tools are used more intensely than others and incorporating any can help inch your way closer to creating an ethicalscape.
Why Ancient Trees?
“Woods and veteran trees are ancient monuments whose value to the local community and historians may be as great as that of the older buildings in the parish.”
Ancient trees are incredibly important both ecologically and culturally. Ecologically, ancient trees provide habitat and food for a huge variety of macro and micro species that exclusively depend on ancient trees for life. The types of species that rely on these ancient tree’s can depend on the tree species itself. Unfortunately we are at a crossroads where there is a gap in the tree lineage - no young trees means no future ancient tree community - losing hundreds of mico-worlds that depend on ancient trees as their food and shelter but will also lose these majestic historical and cultural monuments.
The Mother Monuments: An Adaptive & Protective Design
Modelled after tree root protection zones, the Mother Monuments simultaneously physically protects trees from human disturbance while honouring and protecting their intangible spirit by making the Mother Tree a focal point within the landscape - amplifying its authority within to the status of other important monuments and buildings that currently hold such a notability. This malleable tool morphs and transforms its physical make-up overtime in order to accommodate the tree’s altering size and needs as it continues throughout its life. This goal is achieved through the implementation of fragmented circle like structures circumscribing the Mother Tree, made up of various arcing dry-stone walls on the perimeter with local woodland wildflower meadow planting and bulbs that are interspersed within and around the tree.
Nancy Fuerth
Wish for Mother Tree
Follow:
Share:
