Plasticity: Willow Pond

Plasticity: Willow Pond is a group installation project by Domenica Queen & Griffin Nordstrom on display in Mycellium Shop in Elkins, WV through May 26, 2023 - August 27, 2023.

Show Statement Below by Griffin Nordstrom:
The Willow Tree has a long-standing use as a symbolic feature in art, perhaps greater than any other flora. From Shakespeare to Tolkien, it has had a special place in representing loss, darkness, and a mysterious power and wisdom. Perhaps it is because they flourish and dominate landscapes of marshes and bogs, environments most inhospitable to western ideas of development and human dominance. Though they offer us little sustenance while living, they preserve us in memory, with bog bodies found throughout the northern hemisphere, as well as artifacts like textiles, which would have no hope of lasting through today otherwise.

One considers what will be the remnants of our existence that outlast all others and define our legacy to future spectators? Will it be our writings and firsthand accounts, our art and curated media, or will it be the waste that finds itself buried and preserved, immortalizing a society of hostile negligence to the natural environment it was born from?

The willow tree is commonly used in cemeteries to symbolize resurrection, life after death, and our hopes of an afterlife or lasting legacy. But we must ask ourselves what landscapes will be left for us to imprint upon? What will our layer in the bog be composed of, or will there even be a bog that survives us? Will all the willow trees planted in our lifetime be choked out by pollution and all the marshes dried?