The Visitation explores human exceptionalism and our entitled approach to nature. I am forever awestruck when I come upon a old growth fir tree. The mighty evergreen has played a prominent role in mythology and ceremony for centuries. Conifers were sacred to Attis, the Greek God of vegetation; to the ancient Romans, evergreens were a testimony of light, and honored Saturn, the god of agriculture; Celts embellished their jewelry with pine and fir designs, paying tribute to the deities of life; symbols of immortality, the pine and cypress are scared to the Japanese and Chinese; and for Christians, the conifer tree represents the birth and resurrection of Christ.
Approximately 120 million Christmas trees are cut down every year. The first Christmas tree farm in the US was planted in 1901 by W.V. McGalliard in Mercer County, New Jersey. Twenty years later a Christmas tree and holly farm was established on Eld Inlet in the South Puget Sound of Washington State. The Douglas Fir in this video was meant to be harvested seven years after that first planting. Luckily, the farm abandoned its tree business in favor of holly. By 1950, the farm had been abandoned and the land returned to nature until it was sold in 2020 for residential use. The tree survived long after the farmer who planted it died. It survived the next generation. A century after planting, it has become firewood. I wonder what would have happened if man had continued to pass this Douglas by? How many more generations of man would it have survived?
The project was filmed on Eld Inlet, South Puget Sound Washington, and rural upstate New York. Dancer in the film: Adar Ahuvia
Screenings: Babul Eco Film Festival, Hyderabad, India, Experiments In Cinema Film Festival, Albuquerque, NM, Festival Internacional de Video Arte de Camagüey (FIVAC), Cuba
