Sarah McNutt and Nathaniel Hall

Year: 2014

Location: Artpark Lewiston, NY

Materials: Wood, cement, tree

Measurements: 22' x 10' x 12'

Is there an innate quality to mankind that will always cause self-destruction through creation?

Questions arise around the impossibility of the situation presented before the viewer.

It’s as illogical as it is poignant. A new but abandoned unfinished house structure, intersected by an older natural occurring tree paused through an impossible act of nature. The effects of time and the scope of humanity have been altered in this work. Ill-considered acts of creation are acted upon before we understand their long term ramifications, like sketches when compared to the natural world’s vast age. We are generating a commentary about human nature making decisions that are for short term benefit but long term harm. The natural environment has become the referee for mediating human advancements. Is the tree a perpetrator or benign entity? Are we taunting nature to act?