As with the previous Tree Story on video this one also comes from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Gardens (XTBG), Yunnan .
I met director Liu Guangyu on an recent artist residency and he gave the visiting artists a great presentation about indigenous and traditional knowledge on local ecologies. Liu Guangyu heads the environmental education centre at XTBG and I have enjoyed several wonderful chats with him on aspects of environmental protection .
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Bamboo Munro 香糯竹Cephalostachyum pergracile
Liu’s words:
Sometimes you can see the ladies barbecue the bamboo rice .
This one is used for bamboo rice so you can cut the new one (growth) to put the rice in
and put on the fire and is one of the most widely grown bamboo in Xishuangbanna ,
its called Xianglouzhu 香糯竹
…this dish is very very famous.
This is also interesting for people to watch ,
the leaves are trembling slightly in the breeze， look at the way it flutters .
Shaking is a good defense mechanism for fear of bugs biting it.
It keeps shaking. Another person says ‘The Rhythm of Life”
(Everyone laughs, it is the title of our exhibition which opened that day )
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#1 Empty Tendrils
#2 Pomegranate Tree
#3 Trees are like Humans
#4 Old Ash – A Real Survivor
#5 Tree Rings of Life
#6 A Very Weird Elf
#7 Old Crabapple of Wenhua Dian
#8 Standing Fast
#9 Feeling Good – Tree Song
#10 Forest Breath – Tree Story
#11 Protective Peach – Tree Story
#12 Bee Tree (Part 1) Sycamore
#13 Winter Apples
#14 Ancient Yew Trees
#15 Once I Counted Birds
#16 Family Oak
#17 When the Trees Say Everything
#18 Strawberry Tree
#19 Mother Oak and Baby Oak
#20 My Leylandii
#21 Chestnut Repotted#22 Native Birch#22 Native Birch
#23 Ethan’s Tree
#24 Holding Trunk of Time
#25 Our Mother’s Legacy
#26 It Blossomed
#27 Always Trying To Hold Each Other Up
#28 Wollemi Pine
#29 Barrow Willow
#30 For What We Might Become
#31 Sheltering Beech
#32 Millennium Monkey Puzzle
#33 Monterey Cyprus
#34 Struggle On, Struggle On
#35 Like A Chestnut
#36 Head and Shoulders Above
#37 An Dair Sean
#42 Unusual Bauhinia
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Open Call for your tree story on video
Memory Palace of Tree Stories is a socio-ecological art practice which invites you to tell a story or share information about trees . It is a creative-led social enquiry of how we can live well for both personal and collective wellbeing. Your story can be any kind of tree story , a personal tree story, an ecological tree story , an environmental tree story, an historical tree story or even a botanical tree story. I do hope you can contribute a comment on how we can live better with the greater community of life.
The year 2023 we continue to gather your stories in the form of one minute videos and we are really looking forward to hearing your tree story . I can be contacted directly on this platform or on the contact page on this website.
Niamh Cunningham