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Anchor 7
Adrian Barron, ‘Supervene Forest’ 2014

In 2014, with the participation of local community members, artist Adrian Barron planted 2,000 acorns collected from the region’s historic William Penn oak trees, at the intersection of Routes 926 and 41 on approximately one acre of Street Road's site.
 
The resulting work, an ongoing growing installation, is a unique intervention that prompts reflection on the nature-culture dichotomy. The work combines philosophical concerns central to Barron’s practice with Street Road’s unique context. He writes: "Parts of western Chester County retain a fading air of the rural idyll even as suburbs encroach and the natural topography is altered. Urbanizing tendencies are reflected in and facilitated by developments to the region’s main arterial, Pennsylvania Route 41. Through the communal planting of acorns along the highway, we can create what I call an antipathy to this manmade disruption."
 
As an artist creating an event inspired by natural processes to supersede less ecologically sensitive manmade changes to the landscape, Barron also engages in contradiction that drives questions relevant to a world with rapidly changing climates. The word ‘supervene’ means ‘to happen unexpectedly in a way that interrupts, stops, or greatly changes an existing situation’. The Supervene Forest constitutes a living question about what kind of developments are desirable, and sustainable, on our ever-changing planet.
 
As the seasons change and the tall grasses die back, we’ve been excited to encounter evidence of oak saplings on the property. To “view” the work is to be an active participant, to be attuned to your own presence in nature in your search for saplings.

Responses:

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7A. Philips oak tree photos

7B. Maria Möller 

EJ and Isabel
Emily and Carolina
Colette and Isabel
from 
Value Content/Valor Contenido

Value Content/Valor Contenido exchanges small personal objects between the cities of Philadelphia and Medellín, exploring what happens when we give something we value away to a stranger we’ve never met. It is part 75ºWest/75ºOeste, a collaboration with Colombian activist Daniel Urrea. (75degreeswest.com)

"Value Content is a broad and intimate work. 

On the intimate level: people's stories, people's hands, touching something that someone else once touched. 

My experience of Supervene Forest was also intimate. I was one of the people who foraged for and then planted acorns. I'm there in the middle photo, putting my hands in the earth - something I rarely do. 

On the broad level: Value Content asks how we as individuals can intervene in the globalized economy. How can links of contact - statue, key, bracelet - help us reevaluate the market forces that propel our worlds?

Likewise with Supervene Forest: skin, seed, dirt. How do these small gestures grow big interventions?" - Maria Möller

7C. Gerry Harris' 'Oak' print

7D. Carol Mauer's felt acorn trio