Blued Trees, An Opera

In late October, Anita Rogers Gallery hosted Aviva Rahmani's Blued Trees (2015 - present), her collection of embedded dispatches from the front lines of ecological conflict. Rahmani presented excerpts from her Blued Trees opera with dancer Rishauna Zumberg, pianist and arranger Luka Marinkovic, and soloist Alison Cheeseman. Rahmani then moderated an international participatory streaming event to judge a fossil fuel executive and his wife for ecocide– what is the extent of liability?

In peer-reviewed publications and international exhibitions, she has strung connections between climate change activism, aesthetics, and sea level rise:

“In 1990, after a long career in California and New York, I bought a New England town dump, restored the land and made it my work base. This year, my entire studio building with all my life's work almost washed away with winter storms. My sense of urgency, to give art a voice has never been greater.”

Blued Trees was originally inspired by environmental activists, who asked her to create art to stop pipelines. Rahmani created a series of art installations in forest corridors where natural gas pipelines were proposed. She geolocated designated trees in an aerial pattern that corresponded to a copyrightable symphonic score of “tree notes” in 1/3-mile-long measures. Each tree was painted with a blue casein sine wave from the base to the canopy. Her project attracted international attention. In 2018, a Mock Trial granted her an injunction against further forest destruction by a hypothetical pipeline company. The trial inspired her opera-in-progress.

Just before the American presidential election, visitors were invited to immerse themselves in the questions that have driven Rahmani's practice; to decide outcomes for ecocide, view some of the Blued Trees and ‘Are We Lost’ prints, experience arias, and engage in an audience participatory event.

Blued Trees emerged from intimate knowledge that without imminent intervention, we may all drown in a world of dead forests. It was made possible in part through a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, awarded in 2023, which supported Rahmani in the development of this body of work. Blued Trees in NYC was also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

‘The Wife’s Lament’ performed by Aviva Rahmani.

October 30 2024, will be sung by soloist Alison Cheeseman, with an arrangement by Luka Marinkovich, and the dancer Rishauna Zumberg.

Blued Trees, was originally inspired by environmental activists, who asked Rahmani to create art to stop pipelines. She created a series of art installations in the proposed forest corridors where natural gas pipelines were proposed.

Rahmani geolocated designated trees in an aerial pattern that corresponded to a copyrightable symphonic score in 1/3-mile-long measures. Each tree was painted with a blue casein sine wave from the base to the canopy. Her project attracted international attention. In 2018, a Mock Trial granted her an injunction against further forest destruction by a hypothetical pipeline company. The trial inspired her opera-in-progress.

Press Release

Conception of Blued Trees, An Opera

The Blued Trees, An Opera emerged as a continuation of Aviva Rahmani’s copyrighted continental scale forest symphonic composition which she initiated in 2015. She witnessed a salvo in the most dramatic story of our times: the impunity of ecocide, when a corporation massacred her tree-notes, destroying her art to install their natural gas pipelines. After a 2018 mock trial for her legal suit, she took five years to assemble the performance team and realize her narrative vision. The opera preview was created in just three feverish months and was first performed in summer 2023.

An elderly woman with gray curly hair standing outdoors behind a tree painted bright blue, facing the camera with a serious expression. There is a rustic house, water, and forest in the background.
Tree in a forest with blue paint markings on the trunk, surrounded by green foliage and sunlight filtering through the leaves.

Read more about Blued Trees here:

History going back to 2015:

https://hyperallergic.com/439553/aviva-rahmani-cardozo-school-of-law-stop-a-pipeline

https://hyperallergic.com/235429/using-art-to-stop-a-pipeline

https://www.nyfa.org/conversations-aviva-rahmanis-blued-trees-178288450088

Legal implications and consequences:

https://mediaenviron.org/article/25256-the-blued-trees-symphony-as-transdisciplinary-mediation-for-environmental-policy

Bogok, Gusti. “Art and Activism: The Blued Trees symphonic movement to put ‘public’ back in ‘public benefit’” readersupportednews.org online publication available at:

Art and Activism: The Blued Trees symphonic movement to put “public” back in “public benefit” (readersupportednews.org)

Rehearsal and Staging

Open Rehearsal - the Final Rehearsal Before the Performance the Following Day. August 25th, 2023, 8pm, Soapbox Gallery, 636 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY.

Final review of staging elements for the August 25 and 26 open rehearsal and performance of Blued Trees at the Soapbox Gallery, NYC.

Performance

To view the full Performance video please contact Aviva Rahmani - ghostnets@ghostnets.com - for the password to access the video on Vimeo here.

Opera Performance - Audience Discussion about Ecocide and the Environment

August 26th, 2023, 8pm, Soapbox Gallery, 636 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY

Four people on stage with music stands, a grand piano in the background, and microphones, performing or rehearsing in front of an audience.

The Human Drama

Blued Trees, An Opera is about ecocide and generational conflict brings together the human element of ecocide, the people and their decisions. Within the human drama is a court trial of the pipeline company executive being tried for his destruction, massacre, of trees, to build the pipeline.

A fallen tree with bare branches on a hilltop, with a clear blue sky and mountain range in the background.
People seated in a courtroom, attending a session at Jacob Burns Moot Court. Wood-paneled walls, a portrait of a man above the court sign, and blue flags are visible.

Synopsis

Gary, the CEO of a large energy corporation, has just learned about the legal case brought against him in an eminent domain dispute. The case involves forest property where he is planning to put in a natural gas pipeline. An experimental artist who made an installation on the property has pressed charges. Gary wins a round of the case, which will continue to be fought and appealed. Gary and his daughter, a young obstetrician, have become estranged due to differing beliefs, they see less and less of each other. He asks his daughter to meet him to discuss plans for her mother’s birthday. In the courtroom, the lawyer cross-examines the artist about the artist’s installation The Blued Trees Symphony and ecocide. Gary tells his lawyer and wife about his drastic decision to settle the case, to try to please his daughter. His wife expresses her concerns. Much later in the story, Gary meets with the artist in her garden. The wife is in a bubble.

Fallen tree branches and logs on the forest ground with leafless trees and a clear blue sky in the background.

Meet The Team

The Creatives

  • A woman with wavy light brown hair and fair skin, wearing a black spaghetti strap top, standing against a dark blue background.

    Catherine FIlloux

    LIBRETTIST

    Website
  • A split image of a woman sitting comfortably indoors on the left, and a man outdoors near water and rocks on the right.

    Lauren Petty and Shaun Irons

    PROJECTION-ISTS

    Website
  • Julia Schwartz

    Julia Schwartz

    COMPOSER

    Website
  • A smiling older woman with gray, wavy hair, wearing a denim shirt, in front of a wooden wall.

    Aviva Rahmani

    ARTIST

    Website

The Performers

  • Young man with curly hair and beard, wearing a light blue button-up shirt and a dark blazer, standing outdoors in front of a building with columns.

    Joseph Vaz

    PIANIST

    Website
  • Close-up of a woman with short brown hair, wearing hoop earrings, smiling, and wearing a black top against a gray background.

    Lianne P. Coble-Dispensa

    SOPRANO: DAUGHTER AND LAWYER

    Website
  • Black and white portrait of a woman with long dark hair, wearing a striped top and a necklace.

    Catherine Choi-Steckmeyer

    MEZZO: WIFE AND ARTIST

  • A smiling man with a beard and mustache, wearing a black blazer and a blue shirt, against a white background.

    Ross Benoliel

    BARITONE: EXECUTIVE (GARY)

Others

Elia Emery Min, SOCIAL MEDIA

Felicity Stone, WEB MASTER

Richard Pinkowitz, PRODUCER

Wildcat PR, Marketing

Background


The Blued Trees, An Opera is based on a previous project by Aviva Rahmani called Blued Trees Symphony which began in 2015.

 

The project has received support from the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Blued Trees Symphony is a spatial and acoustic outdoor installation across North America, embodying trigger point theory. The installation covers many miles of proposed pipeline expansions, exploring how art, science, and law can change environmental policies about fossil fuels. The installation is composed of trees marked with a painted vertical sine wave. Each marked tree is GPS located, indicating an aerial musical score for an overture. Using copyright law, the artwork on the trees is protected, subsequently protecting the land from eminent domain takings for pipeline development.

The Blued Trees Symphony launched on the Summer Solstice, June 21, 2015, with an overture in Peekskill, New York. It is now installed in many miles of proposed pipeline expansions. Each 1/3 measure of those miles have been copyrighted for protection as a single work of art. Variations of each movement are based on an iterative score created for the overture. All installations are created at the invitation of landowners. The overture was accompanied by an international Greek Chorus at a total of twenty sites internationally. Individual trees were painted and musical variations of the score were performed to echo the theme of connectivity to all life. The score is simultaneously spatial and acoustic and concluded with a coda, a final movement that recapitulated and resolved previous formal themes, on the American presidential Election Day, November 2016.

The Peekskill site for the overture was chosen because the pipelines would pass 105 feet from the infrastructure of the failing Indian Point Energy Center, a nuclear facility thirty miles from New York City. The score corresponded to a pattern that would have prevented the movement of heavy machinery. The paint for each vertical sine wave is a casein slurry of nontoxic ultramarine blue and buttermilk that grows moss (based on a Japanese gardening technique).

World map highlighting coastlines vulnerable to sea level rise in blue, with blue tree symbols marking locations of Tree Notes and Greek Chorus measures.
A large tree with a blue crescent shape painted on the trunk, standing in a grassy field with several black cows nearby and leafless trees in the background.
Image of a wooded area with fallen branches and logs in the foreground, and a scenic view of distant mountains and open land under a blue sky in the background.

Bibliography

2023               

  • Stoltz, Barbara "A Nature Thing: What Does Contemporary Ecological Art Produce?" Rethinking Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art Arts, edited by Dr. Ronit Milano and Dr. Nissim Gal

  • Rahmani, Aviva "There Will be No Managed Retreat." Bodies in (and out of) Place" Issue #16 , May 2023 Part I dark Matter                          

2022               

  • Rahmani, Aviva Divining Chaos, New Village Press

  • Rahmani, Aviva Ecoart in Action, New Village Press, co-edited with Geffen, Amara, Chris Fremantle and Rosenthal, Ann

2021               

2019               

  • Rahmani, Aviva “A Blued Trees Policy,” Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene Edited by Reiss, Julie Vernon Press, Malaga, Spain and Wilmington, DE.)

2018               

  • Rahmani, Aviva “Rocks, Radishes, Restoration: on the relationships between clean water and healthy soil." Conversation between Aviva Rahmani and Ray Weil in: Toland, Noller & Wessolek, Field to Palette (CRC Press)                 

  • Akiba, Michiko “Blued Trees Symphony” BIOCITY, Bookend Publishing Co., Ltd, Tokyo, No.75

2017                

2016                

Fallen tree in a forest with leafless branches and dry ground; hills visible in the distance under clear blue sky.

Please donate to Blued Trees as we continue our fight against ecocide.

DONATE
A tree stump with cut marks, surrounded by fallen branches and rocks.