A NEW art exhibition that will be mourning the death of the ash tree as a result of ash dieback will be taking place at the Gallery at The Station from 2nd to 8th November.
Ash dieback, a disease first declared by the British Government in 2012, could change the nature of the Mendip Hills where ash trees make up as much as 90% of many of its woodlands.
Artist Alessandra Alexandroff has been researching the problem for the past three years culminating in a solo show ‘Ashes to Ashes – an elegy for the tree that held up the world’. The title refers to the Norse myth of the huge ash tree, Yggdrasil, which kept the universe in balance with its strength and resilience.
Alessandra says, “Known as the tree of rebirth and healing, the ash is now threatened with extinction from a pathogen introduced through global trade and exacerbated by climate warming. So resilient they can grow on stone without soil, these trees are now succumbing to an enemy from within. The effects will be devastating in the Mendips, a favoured habitat for ash trees whose thin roots grow well around the limestone hills, but throughout Britain the nature of woodlands will be forever changed.”
Through paintings, prints and installations, the exhibition memorialises these important yet quiet trees. One of Alessandra’s series of works comprises etchings of 12 moths which are “obligate” to the ash tree – the scientific term for being totally reliant on. They too will become extinct with the passing of the ash tree.
Alessandra said, “Why do so many species go unmourned? Just as with humans, mourning a species allows us to maintain an ongoing relationship with it, creating ties that bind us to our environment so that we too are involved in the fate of what is being lost.”
Aside from the artworks on view, Alessandra will be reviving an old custom: to tuck an ash twig in one’s pocket for protection. Ash twigs will be available in the gallery to take home.
