For the last 12 years, French artist, Constance Fulda has been travelling to India, extensively mapping trees, taking their imprints by placing a thin, strong paper on the trunk of the tree and rubbing acrylic paint on it. Understanding that trees ‘are pillars of everyday life’, that they are and have been the most helpful to the mankind, she feels that the imprints she gets are similar to fingerprints. She believes the imprints are a way of telling its (tree) story.
She was invited by Sumesh Sharma and Zasha Colah, curators at the Clark House in Colaba to map a Banyan Tree that stands at the main gate of the Horniman Circle. This was done on January 16, as a part of the Clark House Initiative, a curatorial practice about a place, which in sharing a junction with two museums and a cinema, mirrors the fictions of what these spaces could be. “Her activity of mapping trees is philosophical and interesting. It can be viewed as a genuine effort to defend the unspeakable. That she has been coming here for the last 12 years just to map trees is a testimony to her commitment and ideology,” said Sharma.
The activity was carried out in the open, was more effective than an exhibition in a gallery. “People from all walks of life got an opportunity to see her work,” said Sharma.
Fulda has been to Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Elaborating on the idea behind this activity she said, “Trees have a great significance in our lives, yet they largely remain undefended and susceptible to human assaults. The imprints, I get are equivalent to a tree’s account of their life and the violence they have undergone at the hands of humans.”
