SUZANNE PALECZNY
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​​Human/Nature


“The earth is not just the environment. The earth is us.
​Everything depends on whether we have this insight or not.”
 


Thich Nhat Hanh, Love Letter to the Earth



​Two of the Human Forest sculptures are currently on display at the new Carcross/Tagish First Nation Learning Centre in Carcross, Yukon, and ​three are on the grounds of the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse, Yukon.
​Introduction

​As a child in the early 70’s I watched smoke spew from the stacks of industries along the St. Marys River in Sault Ste Marie. If we knew that pollution was bad, why, I worried, was it still allowed to flow unimpeded into the sky?
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This body of work explores a perplexing and troublesome question that I continue to ponder:  why do we seem unable to stop ourselves from destroying Earth? Why do we treat Nature so poorly?
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Like a clearing in a forest that grows so large that its centre retains no trace or memory of its former condition, I wonder if we too have lost sight of our origins. ​Over time have we forgotten, or more profoundly, do we no longer believe that we too are Nature?
Picture
Apeiron (the infinite)
​80 x 108"

We are stardust. Everything that is needed to make up you and I and everything on Earth was created in space through the life-cycle of the stars. Chemical elements are the building blocks of everything. They are recycled over and over so that every atom in our bodies was once a part of something else: a river, a rock, a prehistoric animal, an ancient tree.

Man  Was  a Fish 
​80 x 108"
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All life on Earth emerged from the amniotic waters of ancient seas. The structures of our bodies still retain vestiges of our watery past, but what about our memory? Do traces of our early selves also reside in a collective unconscious? 
Of  the Earth II
80 x 108"
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Our mobility gives us a false sense of independence. We move around, fly across the world, launch into space. But in reality we are no less bound to Earth than the trees rooted in her soil. Our survival is inextricably linked to that of our World. We too are “of the earth”.
Weight of the World  80 x 108"

Like we humans, the diversity of life on Earth are sentient beings: animals fiercely protect their offspring, trees warn each other about insect attacks, plants breathe air and ‘hear’ water. Some rivers have now been accorded the legal status of a living human being. Polluting or damaging the rivers is legally equivalent to harming a person.
Violations we commit against Nature are violations committed against our children, grandchildren, and all future generations. How are we okay with this? 
Mother Earth Madonna
80  x  108"

The mother-child bond transcends cultures and time.
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If we could remember that the ocean was our mother, would we still throw garbage into her? 

Of the Earth I
32  x  44"
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We see ourselves reflected in the natural world around us. The growth pattern of a tree is strikingly similar to that of the human lung; hence the lungs of the world mirror our own.


Human Forest
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The bits of driftwood I collected along our Yukon shores resemble human bones, tendons and muscles; the waves that deposited them a reflection of our own evolution, to move and dance upon this Earth.

​photo credits: @Jake Paleczny  Photography, Joel Krahn,  Derek  Parker, others.
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet”.
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Thich Nhat Hanh
Download show catalogue:
human_nature_catalogue_yukon_arts_centre_2017.pdf
File Size: 6041 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

suzannepaleczny@gmail.com
867.336.0885
Whitehorse,  Yukon, Canada
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