This reflection is going to look at the research on the lifespan of tree species that led to solving a major roadblock in the creation and filling of the sandbox diorama.
This week I faced a problem. I purchased a nice big box for our sandbox, only to take it home to my miniature sculptures and realize, sh*t, the work I’ve done will not, in a circumstance, fill this ginormous thing.
The most obvious answer for me to solve this was to make more items to fill the box- which I did.
But how many more could I make? Initially, I was trying to only create items that conceivably wouldn’t rot away after being left to decay for 1000 years- this quickly fell through as I realized we couldn’t realistically have items from a chemical-free, completely wooden-made society and expect them to still exist to be unearthed centuries later.
This led me to further explore the Andors and their more mystical wooden qualities that made their wood more endurable and widely applicable to the building of another civilization. According to Salleh (2020), the oldest tree in the world has lived for 5,000 years and in places where almost all other plants cannot grow. This got me thinking, what if the Andors wood is never truly separate from the tree, even when chopped off, just like the Ginko Biloba trees that “can compartmentalize any damaged or dead roots or branches and work around them” (Salleh 2022). The Andors too, “[Could] lose part of leaves or roots and continue to be healthy” (Salleh 2022). As long as the tree lives (even if only through its roots), its resources and wood survive, giving us the Codan’s inexhaustible resource… that is, unless they get sick from chemicals used to promote excess production and start to die.
This brilliant idea led me to fill the entire bottom layer of the box with healthy Andor tree roots as if to imply that they could heal and protect themselves from complete annihilation while also giving me the power to create miniatures from the wood they provided and fill the box itself with more elements.
I also believe it is important to represent and show that they did, in fact, die (even if they survived underground), so on the surface of the diorama, there will be dead vines and a mostly empty surface to represent this. The very lack of something is, in very essence, its own element filled with story. “Space is not nothing, it’s everything” (Watts n.d)
While we, as a group, know the ‘real’ story of the two species’ destruction, we want there to be enough clues from both sides to allow our audience to decide for themselves what caused their destruction.
References:
Salleh A (2022) Are very long-lived trees immortal, and what can they teach humans? ABC Science Website, accessed 17 May 2023. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-08-05/are-very-long-lived-trees-immortal/12504064
Watts A (n.d) Extended Seminars: The Universe – The Power of Space 1, Alan Watts Website, accessed 17 May 2023. https://alanwatts.com/?_ga=2.111714244.1995770913.1684281757-1171918544.1684281757
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