Todd Bartel

Todd Bartel (Massachusetts, USA)

Glorious Mutualism, Asymmetrical Yet Reciprocal — Twenty-first Century Commensalism (A Call for A Massive Transfusion for Major Arboreal Trauma), [Landscape Vernacular 14], 2020

burnished interlocking collage; recto: xerographic prints on 19th- and 20th-century end-pages (left: How a Tree is Made into Lumber—lumberjack cutting a tree trunk into rectangular sections, Le Magasin Pittoresque, Larive and Fleury 1874; right: Clysmatica Nova, Joannes Sigismund Elsholtz 1667), definition of graft, pencil, map frame cuttings, wax paper transfer; verso: xerographic transfers of Clysmatica Nova, Joannes Sigismund Elsholtz 1667, Elsholtzia Ciliata, and a graft diagram, pencil, golden section proportion scale 1.618, endpage cuttings, Yes Glue, document repair tape

8.75 x 17.125 inches

I wonder what would be possible if, as a species, we could agree to connect with a specific possibility and work together to achieve it. If we all chose to do the same thing all at once, for example, what might our collective impact be? According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “In 2020, as the country responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, CO2 emissions from energy consumption in the United States fell to the lowest level since 1983.” Imagine if we agreed to regularly curtail the use of combustion engines. Imagine what lessons we could learn by practicing abstinence, even for short periods of time. Moreover, what if we become good at working together en-masse regularly? What might humanity be able to connect with then?