The last lecture in the context of Symbiocene, which highlights two interesting practices that serve to show the roles, challenges and potentials related to trees in modern, urban environments, will be hosted by Ingo Vetter, a member of the Tree of Heaven Woodshop creative collective, and Lena Marion, an arborist and representative of Tisa, one of the most successful companies in Slovenia dealing with tree maintenance and cultivation.

Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop
Ingo Vetter

In 2005, Mitch Cope, Ingo Vetter and Annette Weisser founded the Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop. The Woodshop works exclusively with wood processed from the Tree of Heaven, a seemingly endless resource in the Detroit area. Also known as the “ghetto palm”, this plant (Ailanthus altissima) thrives in abandoned lots and deserted factory sites all over Detroit. By conventional standards it’s a poor quality wood, but the artists look at it as a post-industrial resource, and take advantage of its veritable ubiquity. The Woodshop is set up as a loosely organized network of local specialists and develops artworks and commissions for international museums and galleries.

Ingo Vetter , artist and professor for sculpture at the University of the Arts Bremen, Germany, will present the work of the woodshop and current developments back in in Detroit.

The Role of Trees in Urban Environments
Lena Marion

The lecture will address the role and importance of trees in the urban environment. Different views and thoughts on urban trees will be presented, as well as the various challenges encountered by tree keepers. We will also try to answer the question, how each of us can contribute to the preservation of urban trees.

Tisa, d. o. o. looks back at almost 40 years of tradition in arboriculture. The company offers a full range of arborist services (pruning, cutting, planting, consultancy, diagnostics, setting up of tree cadastre) all over Slovenia.

Lena Marion studied forestry and then went on to specialize in urban trees. Her services include full tree diagnostics and consultations on the state and maintenance of trees and related necessary actions. She is an ISA-Certified Arborist and is ISA-Tree Risk Assessment Qualified, and is also a member of the International Society of Arboriculture, the American Society of Consulting Arborists, and the Slovenian Society of Arboriculture.

After the talk in the museum attic we will visit the beehives in the park and demonstrate a regular checking-up on of the hives.

Simbiocen is a nomadic platform for creative research into interspecies collaborations within contemporary ecosystems. The platform is currently hosted at Fužine, in the park and in the attic spaces of the Museum for Architecture and Design. Using the wood from the invasive tree of heaven, the project authors transformed the exhibition space into a working studio with resident beehives. Throughout September, they will use the space to organize a series of events and workshops aimed at providing insight into the overlooked connections between apiculture, permaculture, climate change and invasive plants.

Location

MAO
Pot na Fužine 2

Admission

free admission

Info

The lecture will be held in English (Ingo Vetter) and Slovenian (Lena Marion).

Symbiocene.

izobrazevanje(at)mao.si
01/ 5484 282/80

Organization

Trajna Collective
MAO