Year after year, with never-ending longing and searching for new connections, we try to revive the long-lost and sacred harmony between us, humans and nature. We believe that by merging the signs, symbols, images, and visions handed down to us, we can create bricks from which we can model a paradisiacal, sacred unity. We want to transform not only our bodies but also our spirits in order to feel more intensely, to gain greater knowledge, and to learn to use our powers for better purposes.
The contemporary art exhibition entitled Oh, how I wish I were a tree in the forest… presents the art of three artists with different motivations but similar theoretical approaches. The song referenced in the exhibition’s title is a hungarian folk song about the sorrow of love, in which the narrator, in his grief, wants to become a tree so that he can heal the flawed world by bursting into flames. As in the song, the motif of transformation runs through the works presented in the exhibition, inspired by the desire to expand sensory experience, increase agency, and reunite with nature and healing.
The exhibited works depict the concept of transformation and hybridity associated with Donna Haraway’s notion of kinship, where the physical forms of femininity and various plant organ systems merge, allowing us to witness their spiritual transformation. Beyond this, the exhibition also reveals a winding but sometimes dangerous path, at the end of which—if we take the right steps—we can find refuge and healing in nature and the ancient, folk, magical, and spiritual content associated with it.