PANSENTIENT ARBORICULTURE

PROPOSITION BETHNAL GREENLONDON 2025

PANSENTIENT ARBORICULTURE

Trees have lived on Earth since long before human life appeared. They have watched over and nurtured us from our very infancy, providing us with the air we breathe, the food we eat, shade to shelter us and materials to build our homes and fuel technological progress.

Trees are metaphors for our own lives: mirroring our need for protection and foundations; our yearning for freedom and lightness; our desire to grow and disperse; and our will to become unique individuals while remaining part of a far-reaching community of fellow beings. Yet we persist in cutting down forests, allowing their ancient wisdom to fall on deaf ears. While many diverse communities are actively cultivating and protecting woodland, others are engaging in deforestation and destruction.

Proposition is pleased to present Pansentient Arboriculture, a new solo exhibition by artist Sol Bailey Barker which proposes a system of care in which trees and entire forests are considered sentient and aware, having a form of consciousness. This exhibition decodes our relationship with the arboreal world, or the world of trees, considering their cultural and spiritual roles, as well as practices such as agroforestry and ecological Preservation. Drawing on the folklore of Albion, or Ancient Great Britain, and carved from the trees of Sussex, the exhibition builds a bridge to the world our ancestors lived in, extending from their knowledge. 

Bailey Barker presents a body of work which highlights how trees are central to our wellbeing and long-term flourishing. The abstract sculptures, formed from the trunks of trees, bring the organic forms and textures of the wood into conversation with the mythologies of Albion. In this way, the artworks presented here honour both the material and spiritual life of trees and the intertwined histories of arboreal and human life, exploring the tangible and intangible nature of our relationship with trees. Acknowledging the age of the Anthropocene, an unofficial unit of geologic time during which humans have had a substantial impact on our planet, his practice is rooted in Ancient Futurism, Druidic knowledge, land stewardship, and modern technologies. Pansentient Arboriculture offers a vision for a harmonious future and a way of life that respects and protects nature.The work responds to the subconscious realm that shapes the collective, cultivating a stronger sense of community with all living entities.

In the structure of woven hazel and willow in Gallery 2, you are invited to lay and gaze up at the weaving. Within this installation there is a sound piece titled The Loom: The Archive of Living Memory. The story is written by Sol Bailey Barker and voiced by artist Zoe Bedeaux Aka T.I.P The Invisible Prophetess, Poetess, Protest. Zoe is an autopoietic, interdisciplinary artist and founder of Witchcrafted by Vida Cosmotics. 

The exhibition also features a poem by Ibrahim Mukhayer, An Elegy to Unhearing Humanity - a text to re-enchant our relationship to the tree, while illustrating the ceaseless gifts and atemporal reflections that humanity draws from the exchange with the arboreal world.

Pansentient Arboriculture will run at Proposition in Bethnal Green from 24th April to 7th June 2025.