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The Hidden Life of Groves

text, by Lin Wolf (2023)

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Bi-weekly streaming of one of the enchanting films from our festival in 2023.
For this special edition of the stream, we feature a text by author and artist, Lin Wolf.

What is a grove? A small forest or group of trees. The older, wilder sibling of a garden. The one that is not fenced in or defined by an adjoining house. Widely differing in purpose - gardens are primarily designed to cultivate an idealized version of nature whereas groves are seeded to harvest nutrition, nuts and drupes for example.

Even though every tree in a grove might be from the same species they are all different – changing and evolving over time, just like us humans. Stuck in systems, surrounded by others, longing for freedom and sovereignty. A grove feels like a society in itself, harvested and governed by humans. I wish for it to be as free as a forest but in the end a grove is a defined space that mirrors the human need for harvest, result and control. Walking through one makes me feel like I’m in a megacity with all its brutality and tragedy. It’s obvious that there once was other vegetation here which in itself implies a deforestation of the land before.

The longer I think about it the more absurd the concept of a grove gets but the more I feel for this dynasty of trees that make me feel like I too should be part of this family. It makes me melancholy to be surrounded by a single species of trees - wanting to desperately belong to this majestic megacity of trees leading a stable, growing and interconnected existence that in itself is fake.

I should probably stop idealizing groves and shift my fascination to forests. But what can I do? I too, am just a human fascinated by these monocultures that mirror the anthropocene. I feel cozy and reminded of home. The nature in me is not the wilderness of a forest, nor the illusion of the beauty of a garden, but rather the structured safety net of a grove.

Photograph by Artur Schernthaner-Lourdesamy

AUTHOR

Lin Wolf

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Lin Wolf is an artist based in Vienna. She studies Site Specific Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her artistic primarily practice focuses on sculptural installations and painting in the expanded field but also has a practice in writing and curating. For Enchanted Garden, Lin produced this text about groves as a methaphor for family structures, cohabitation, coexistence, social cohesion and community building in the age of the anthropocene.

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