Small Gestures
Small Gesture was an intervention performed in Golden Gate Park. The project was developed in response to too much time spent at the computer editing Park Bench. The inspiration for the intervention was a desire to intervene on the prescribed codes behavior in the park explored by the film. Working with the theme of what constitutes an artificial construct as a counterpoint to what is culturally defined as natural, multiple trees were mysteriously “dressed up” throughout the park. As an ephemeral unsolicited installation, the trees were ensconced one by one in fabrics such as taffeta and adorned with ric-rac and other decorative items on a busy Saturday. Historically, in America, an important cultural theme, was the belief that nature needed the white man’s aesthetic touch to enhance and bring out the inherent beauty waiting to be fully revealed. The overwhelming public response to the intervention implied that the anthropocentric tradition of nature is alive and well in contemporary California culture. The project was documented in a series of pigment prints and hand bound into a single edition.