Breathe…BioDiversiTree — What If Festival, Merritt BC, 2025

Breathe…BioDiversiTree is a community installation.

BioDiversiTree first emerged at the OOTO Festival in England, where it was welcomed and evolved over two seasons. Then I returned to Canada, and after several years of dormancy, it re-emerged in the summer of 2025 for the What If Festival in Merritt, British Columbia, where it was welcomed as the first thing festies saw upon descending the hill to enter the festival – a living, collectively created installation offering a place to pause and Breathe…and contemplate our relationship with the planet: what it gives us, what we give in return.

wp-17812217127028463905500365085602 — *Over the days of the 2025 WhatIf Festival, Breathe…BioDiversiTree accumulated creative contributions as well as lost-and-found items, becoming a living taxonomy of human and natural belonging.*

During the day, it offers a meeting place, a place to contemplate the planet, our relationship, what it gives us, what we give back; it offers a place to reconsider what we discard. Festies are invited to repurpose trash into something decorative to hang on the tree.

In the days leading up to the festival, I invited random passers-by to help build the installation: a representation of a tree, using fallen branches and other natural WHY (what have you) collected from within the festival site, and brought to BioDiversiTree’s location.

The first tree built at WhatIf 2025 blew over. It was too tall. So an energetic volunteer came with hand saw, and sawed off the branches to make it shorter.

The bare frame was fully installed for opening day of the festival, then as festies arrive, they were invited to stop and visit the tree during their stay. Lit-up with solar mini-lights at night, festies said it was a beacon guiding them back to their camp when wandering through an otherwise darkened area.