This interrelated group of artworks was inspired by material connections between the forest, the wooden chair, and the carbon cycle. Carbon exhaled by animals and humans, and released by the burning of all fuels, is taken up and sequestered in the wood of trees. The tree can be cut by humans, and made into a functional chair (or any other object). The video depicts a one-year life cycle, shot in weekly increments, of the red oak tree centered in To Understand a Tree, and the chair is made from the wood of a different fallen tree of the same species. This suite of works is rooted in contemplation of processes of becoming and unbecoming: artistic, embodied, and material, viewed against a backdrop of global climate change.

These works were included in the group exhibition "Becoming Trees," curated by Fritz Horstman, at the Concord Center for the Visual Arts in Concord MA, Spring 2022.