The Occasional Journal
The Dendromaniac
March 2015
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Editorial
Alice Tappenden, Ann Shelton, Jessica Hubbard -
For the trees
Rachel Buchanan -
dwelling trees, tree dwellings
Xin Cheng -
Axis Mundi: Long Live the Tree of Life
Prudence Gibson, Tessa Laird -
Forest satyagraha
Robyn Maree Pickens -
Garden City
Holly Best -
Accentuated Breath
Clare Hartley McLean -
On the portraiture of mushrooms
Creek Waddington -
Shade
Andrea Gardner -
bigwoods
Emil McAvoy -
Regan Gentry: Transformer and Master of Time
Sharon Taylor-Offord -
Colonisation versus conservation: a colonial view
Rebecca Rice -
Tae
Bridget Reweti -
The Framing of the Earth
Richard Shepherd -
Wildness in the Garden of Empire
Shaun Matthews -
In search of unknown vandals
Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, Thomasin Sleigh -
Bo.tan.i.cal: from the Greek
Jessica Hubbard -
The Tree as Traveller: Sakura in space, kōwhai in Chelsea, and the oldest pohutukawa in Spain
Emma Ng -
Seeing the wood and the trees: a complicating history of Hitler’s Oaks
Ann Shelton -
Conversations with Cripplewood
Cat Auburn -
Out of the Woods: The Return of Twin Peaks
Alice Tappenden, Matt Plummer -
The conceptual, the pastoral, and the plainly freakish (or, some of my favourite artworks are trees…)
Martin Patrick -
This is a femme slam.
Sian Torrington -
Explorations
Christian Nyampeta -
Works from the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008
Raul Ortega Ayala -
Bent
Jonathan Kennett, Mary Macpherson -
One Shining Gum / Savia Brillante
Christina Barton, Maddie Leach, Zara Stanhope -
Acknowledgments
Alice Tappenden, Ann Shelton
Works from the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008
Raul Ortega Ayala
Detail of A tree cut at 1:1, 1:4 and 1:16, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, Wood, 4 x 3 x 3 mts. Photo: Roberto Rubalcava © Raul Ortega Ayala
A tree grafted into another, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, Photographic documentation of an action, 8 x 24 in © Raul Ortega Ayala
Field Note 02-24-08-4, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, Typewritter and ink on paper, 30 x 20 cm © Raul Ortega Ayala
Field Note 04-25-06, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, Photographs, 4 x 6 in © Raul Ortega Ayala
A tree cut at 1:1, 1:4 and 1:16, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, Wood, 4 x 3 x 3 mts. Photo: Roberto Rubalcava © Raul Ortega Ayala
A tree cut at 1:1, 1:4 and 1:16, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, Wood, 4 x 3 x 3 mts. Photo: Tommi Grönlund and the artist © Raul Ortega Ayala
Field Note 10-10-07 and 04-25-06, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, Photographs, 4 x 6 in each © Raul Ortega Ayala
A tree turned into wood, charcoal and paper to represent itself, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, In collaboration with Carlos Ortega, Mixed media, All images by Raul Ortega Ayala and Carlos Ortega © Raul Ortega Ayala
A tree turned into wood, charcoal and paper to represent itself, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, In collaboration with Carlos Ortega, Mixed media, All images by Raul Ortega Ayala and Carlos Ortega © Raul Ortega Ayala
A tree turned into wood, charcoal and paper to represent itself, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, In collaboration with Carlos Ortega, Mixed media, All images by Raul Ortega Ayala and Carlos Ortega © Raul Ortega Ayala
A tree turned into wood, charcoal and paper to represent itself, From the series An Ethnography on Gardening, 2006-2008, In collaboration with Carlos Ortega, Mixed media, All images by Raul Ortega Ayala and Carlos Ortega © Raul Ortega Ayala
About the artist
Raul Ortega Ayala’s work is the direct result of combining anthropological and aesthetic processes to produce something that offers anthropological insight through aesthetic experience.
In the past decade his work resulted from immersions into different milieu, which he experienced and researched for extended periods of time through the ethnographic approach of participant observation. The works shown here belong to a series entitled An Ethnography on Gardening for which he took employment as a gardener in London between 2004 and 2006. He then used the ‘materials’ and the embodied knowledge from that context to produce more than 30 works and ‘field-notes’, which function as ‘souvenirs’ from his experience and offer a response to and an insight into the world of Gardening.