Social Cohesion & Economic Mobility Tree (2023)

This project was part of my work with The Community Art Center and commissioned by The Cambridge Community Foundation.  CCF approached me about creating an interactive public art piece that could collect input from the community and be presented as an activity during their block party event celebrating their new long-range strategic plan. The key components of the strategic plan were focused on social cohesion and economic mobility.

For this project, I create a large scale painting of a simple bare tree and presented paper cut-outs of roots, trunk bark, and leaves that participants could write on and attach to the painting. On the leaves participants were asked to describe their goals for the next 5 years. On the trunk bark, they were asked to describe their strategies for the future they wish to build. And on the roots, to describe their current position in life.

The idea was that as participants thought and wrote about their life’s goals and their strategies for achieving them (economic mobility), they could connect it visually to the root, trunk, and leaf system of the tree. When participants attached these items to the tree, they became part of a larger unified system that is all working together (social cohesion).