Cooperating trees

“Woolroot (driftwood, cooper, wool and oil pastel), by Leslie Wilcox, in her show “Enrootables,’’ at Boston Sculptors Gallery, April 3-May 5.

The gallery says:

“Inspired by evidence of trees’ underground social network known as the

‘wood wide web,’ Wilcox shrouds sea-distressed deadwood

with twisted metal screening to explore earthbound similarities and shared connections between

human forms and life-sustaining, mutually communicative arboreal forests.

Supplanting human bones with driftwood tree roots, Wilcox creates organic skeletal forms tightly

encased in copper and bronze screens, referencing bark or sapwood or skin. ‘Enrootables’ cultivates a

glimpse beneath the forest floor to reveal shared alliances through communication and care among

multiple species. And while mimicking our own modern behavior, themes of cooperation for mutual

benefit are discovered, including human dependence on trees’ filtration of carbon dioxide. Evidence of

trees living among their parents, siblings and offspring growing twice as tall and living twice as long

fosters this transfer of knowledge and expertise to future generations, thus safeguarding the existence

of thriving forest biospheres. Can what we learn from these strategies ensure the same for the future of

humankind? (Companion reading: The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben).’’