February 22, 2017
Choose the exhibit you’d like to write about. Write a few paragraphs in which you begin to explore the interpretive problems that your exhibit raises. Think about how you might apply the keywords you have identified from the essays of this progression to your exhibit. How might the application of these keywords and concepts problematize your exhibit?
My earliest memory, one I can recall without the aid of any video or story, involves me being stroller-ed around the gardens of an apartment complex in Forest Hills, New York. I remember in vivid colors my grandmother pushing my stroller around in an effort to calm me down, and all I could do was look at the bushes and birdies and squirrels and big tall trees that surrounded me. Soft Cantonese and crisp Autumn leaves… or was it Springtime? One thing I took for advantage, living in the suburbs, was the dense foliage Forest Hills was named for. Was it raining? Get under a tree! Is it sunny? Get under a tree!
So it only makes sense that we got away from the powerful trees of Forest Hills. I moved to the city for high school. In the city, if it rains, you better have an umbrella. If the sun is beating down, you better deal with it. However, the city does have it’s fair share of trees. Most of them are short, stubby, and fenced off, useful only as something pleasant for eyes to lay on.
Not really talking about any issues here with trees. I just have a lot of pleasant memories involving them. Even though I’m an indoorsie computer science guy, I wasn’t always one. I used to play ball in elementary school. I used to roller-blade in the park with neighbors and friends. Even now, I still appreciate the contrast between the pleasant twigs of New York and the monument to man’s arrogance that is Manhattan.
But the thing is, there isn’t really any contrast there. One thing I people don’t realize is that the street trees that span New York City are there for us and there because of us. They are fenced around and cared for and cut down and planted every few years. But nobody thinks much about the city trees because they are just there. They are planted there to have as little of an impact on city-goers as possible, on the edge of the sidewalk, a barrier between pedestrians and cars.
My English teacher in high school once mentioned that all the trees in Manhattan were male trees, and that the city only planted male trees because they do not produce any street-litter in the form of cones or seeds. Why did she mention this to me? She only told me this because apparently, male trees created pollen, the allergy inducing stuff that caused the both of us seasonal grief. It’s the only conversation I’ve had with somebody about trees in the last couple of years.
I suppose that’s kind of weird because there definitely are a couple thousand trees in New York City, 600000 according to this fine post.
If there are 6 million tax payers in the Big Apple, I practically own 10% of a tree. New York City trees are not just for our pets, they are our pets.
Much like the eccentric cardigan touting poodles one finds on the Upper West Side, the trees of the city reek of human influence. Most of the trees in the city come from Asia. In fact, only one of the, maybe, dozen most common trees comes from somewhere other than Asia (Europe).
Is this bad? Of course it’s bad (convince me). Why is this bad?
I honestly don’t think there’s some big red no-no to be pointed out. I just think people ought to acknowledge their agency in the shaping of nature. It is easy to lose sight of the city. It is massive, a cement jungle. However, people will always point to the remnants of nature in the city as a sign that mankind has not completely subjugated the land. Perhaps we haven’t, but the terms (of war? of coexistence?) have been signed, and they seem to be in man’s favor.