Learning Tree

Myriel Milicevic stayed with us in Chicago for about a week. Her scheduled flights gave her a few days free after her installation was done and her show opened. Seeing the print shop, she wondered if we could make use of it to produce a simple participatory gesture. Along with Kevin Haywood, we planned, printed, and assembled Learning Tree—a string of cards with pencils to be tied around tree trunks, with a message of invitation printed on them—in a day. Anonymous sidewalk passers-by completed the work. Later, the work was shown in Without You I Am Nothing, a show about participatory print media. Curiously, despite the exhibition theme, the gallery show produced less robust participation than when the cards were put out along the street.