Changemaker
Sarah Bird
TL;DR
Artist Sarah Bird works with trees as material and method, and is a Scholar-Artist Fellow at Justus Liebig University in Germany.
Sarah Bird is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice takes trees as media, mediators, material and method, asking what arboreal ways of being might teach humans about belonging to a diverse biotic community. She works across photography, projection, animation and installation, drawing on the qualities of trees themselves as both the subject and the generative force of the work. She holds a doctorate in film and digital media from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she was a fellow of the Climate Action Lab, and her dissertation, Redwood World-Making Strategies, Art and Arboreality, develops arboreality as both a conceptual framework and an artistic method. She is a Scholar-Artist Fellow at Justus Liebig University in Germany, where her installation Entangled Arboreality is on ongoing view. Giants Rising describes her as an artist at UC Santa Cruz, which was true when the film was made and is not her current position.
Sarah Bird is an interdisciplinary artist who works with trees as material and method, and a Scholar-Artist Fellow at Justus Liebig University in Germany.
Why OGSP Recommends It
Sarah Bird is an interdisciplinary artist who works with trees as material and method, and a Scholar-Artist Fellow at Justus Liebig University in Germany.
She received her doctorate in film and digital media is from UC Santa Cruz, where she was a fellow of the Climate Action Lab.
Her earlier project Being/Tree she described as a call for people who live in cities to work in concert and collaboration with the natural world.
Related Resources
Key Takeaways
- Her practice treats trees as media, mediators, material and method rather than as subject matter alone.
- Her doctorate in film and digital media is from UC Santa Cruz, where she was a fellow of the Climate Action Lab.
- Her installation Entangled Arboreality is on ongoing view at Justus Liebig University in Germany.
- Her earlier project Being/Tree she describes as a call for people who live in cities to work in concert and collaboration with the natural world.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Sarah Bird?
An interdisciplinary artist whose practice takes trees as media, material and method, working across photography, projection, animation and installation.
What is Entangled Arboreality?
Her installation, on ongoing view at Justus Liebig University’s Graduate Center for the Study of Culture in Giessen, Germany.
What did Sarah Bird study?
She holds a doctorate in film and digital media from UC Santa Cruz, where she was a fellow of the Climate Action Lab, and a master of fine arts from California College of the Arts.
Is Sarah Bird in Giants Rising?
Yes. Her own site says her work is featured in the film, and the film describes her as making portraits of redwoods and other trees.