Exhortation places in close proximity: a tree, a person, and a text. In this activated space a visitor is invited to witness, to exhort, to become more aware. The book in the Exhortation pod is Journey to Earthland: The Great Transition to Planetary Civilization by Paul Raskin, the founding president of the Tellus Institute, which researches global sustainability planning and policy. Raskin urges us to shift awareness and allegiance beyond state, nation, continent, and to start thinking and living as citizens of a planet-wide proto-country.
Research shows that one’s brain absorbs information better when it can cue from notable features in one’s surroundings. By interacting with Raskin’s text on a hill in the Hapgood Wright Town Forest in Concord, MA, a visitor has the opportunity to more fully absorb the messages. As we read, the sentences, social constructs, ideals and declamations become part of our physiology in the form of neural connections. In this way Exhortation offers each of us a space in which to be transformed.
This installation is part of the 2019 Art Ramble: Witnessing Change exhibition produced by The Umbrella in Concord, MA. Jurors: Jess Muise and Nancy Lippe. On view in the Hapgood Wright Town Forest, September 1 – November 1, 2019.
Production photos are below —
