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The Abundance Tree

An interactive Community Art Installation that facilitates giving and an understanding of abundance.
  • Status: Active
  • Submitted: Tue Jan 12, 2010   |   Last updated: Tue Jan 12, 2010
  • Location(s): Orleans
  • Topics(s): Community development, Education, Environment, Housing, Other
  • Tag(s): Giving, Homelessness, Community
  • Views: 2148  

Details

A traveling installation that brings a community together to give, create and teach through immersion in a gift culture. Participants are asked to bring items to attach to this giving tree before choosing items to take from its branches. Signs on the tree implore them to “Give More Than You Take” and remind them that “Abundance Creates Serendipity”. Made of discarded branches.

Project Scope: Vision, Aim, & Objectives

Why this project is being done:
Because we have to. The world needs alternatives to the stale old solutions to what ails us. And we are exploring those solutions and inspiring people across the country to look for their own answers too.
Who or what this project would impact:
The project helps all ages and socio-economic levels learn about giving and abundance through hands on experience.
Project intends to address:
Like the story of Stone Soup, participants come together to make this tree "grow" and learn what it takes to build a community in this way. The interior of the tree allows a seating area to facilitate discussion in the tradition of the Liberty Tree.
Included or excluded:
We're seeking venues in your area now. We'll be traveling this coming year to the areas of the country hardest hit by home-foreclosures and homelessness. Please contact us if you have an available venue.

Project Timeline

It takes one week to build the tree and then it is left for a week for the community to interact with, by hanging gifts from its branches for each other. Then the project is dismantled and recycled. But the impression left behind doesn't seem to fade

Project Plan & Participants

Other people and/or organizations involved in this project:
We have a core group of volunteers that travel with the project and ask for help from the community through forums and the press prior to arrival in a new city. Schools, lodges, and other groups often help.
Plan for implementing this project:
We have a full implementation plan and have installed the project four times so far, including at the Carbondale Mountain Fair in Colorado and at the experimental city, Arcosanti in Arizona.

Related Links

Coming Soon

Help or Additional Resources Needed

Materials needed (wish list):
Discarded branches, twigs and grapevine, twine, papier mache materials, venue of course, volunteers, gifts - all sorts.
Help needed from other people:
Right now we're looking for a venue in the area - a business or other venue near an art walk, a school, some other situation. But we need an area with a good deal of traffic and a forty foot or so ground space to build and for someone to handle the permitting if needed for the two weeks we'll be there.