Trees Grow and Fall

Trees are very generous. They give shade, clean air, and beauty to any landscape. When harvested, we use their wood to build homes, make furniture, pencils, paper, and other useful items, and, in return, trees ask for nothing. It seems to me that society takes this generosity for granted. Are we acting responsibly with this precious natural resource?

Trees Grow and Fall is a documentary multimedia project that shows the way urbanization has marginalized trees and questions the social impact of deforestation. My interest in this topic began after looking closely at a group of photographs I’d taken in Brooklyn. These photos jumped out at me, beckoning to be heard. They depicted trees being pushed back by newly built structures; some were fenced out like prisoners; others were replaced by electric poles made with their own corpses.

In the forest, trees rise majestically as the world’s sentinels of life, goodness, and clean air. In the city, packed with cars, people, and buses, trees become hindrances to progress, nuisances to be eliminated. Does it have to be this way? Can’t trees and people co-exist?

This documentary raises many important social questions, not the least of which, what effects will deforestation have upon society, as well as on each of us?

Trees Grow and Fall

2011 - 2017