Tree Talks: Populus Tremuloides (Fall)
Location: Kenosha Pass, Colorado, USA
Date: Friday, October 15, 2021
Time: 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. MT 

The first of four seasonal talks organized by artist Ben Kinsley focused on understanding the Quaking Aspen tree. The Fall talk features lectures by guest speakers Dr. Sara Branco, Suzanne Marchetti, and Mary Jane Sullivan

Populus tremuloides (Fall Series)

Tree Talks: Populus Tremuloides (Winter)
Location: Kenosha Pass, Colorado, USA
Date: January 16, 2022
Time: 12:00 - 2:30 p.m. MT

The second of four seasonal talks organized by artist Ben Kinsley focused on understanding the Quaking Aspen tree. The Winter talk features lectures by guest speakers Marilyn A. Martorano, Christine Biermann, and Brian Linkhart.

Populus tremuloides (Winter Series)

Tree Talks: Populus Tremuloides (Spring)
Location: Kenosha Pass, Colorado, USA
Date: June 5, 2022
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. MT

The third of four seasonal talks organized by artist Ben Kinsley focused on understanding the Quaking Aspen tree. The Spring talk features lectures by guest speakers De Lane Bredvik, Jaime Kopke, and Walt Pourier (Oglala Lakota).

Populus tremuloides (Spring Series)

Tree Talks: Populus Tremuloides (Summer)
Location: Kenosha Pass, Colorado, USA
Date: August 5, 2022
Time: 11:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. MT

The final of four seasonal talks organized by artist Ben Kinsley focused on understanding the Quaking Aspen tree. The Summer talk features lectures by guest speakers Iddo Aharony, Brandon Vogt, and Gregory Ragland.

Populus tremuloides (Summer Series)

OCTOBER 15, 2021
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Suzanne Marchetti is the biological technician at the Forest Health Protection office of the Forest Service in Gunnison, Colorado. Since 2008, she has worked in aspen forests. First by doing defining research on sudden aspen decline (SAD) and continuing to follow the decline with long term plots. She works in all forest types in southwest Colorado, tracking bark beetle outbreaks, training folks to identify forest insects and pathogens, studying the impacts of drought on tree species, and mapping future bioclimate suitability for forest species in southwest Colorado.

Populus tremuloides: Suzanne Marchetti

OCTOBER 15, 2021
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Dr. Sara Branco completed her Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Chicago as a Fulbright scholar, was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley and a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Paris. She has been studying fungi since she was 16 years old and earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Currently Dr. Branco is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Integrative Biology at University of Colorado Denver. Dr. Branco studies the ecology and evolution of fungi.

Populus tremuloides: Sara Branco

OCTOBER 15, 2021
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Dr. Mary Jane Sullivan (May 14, 1950– February 7, 2022) was a poet
and documentarian and taught Film Studies and Sound and Poetry studies at University of Colorado Colorado Springs. She studied with Pauline Oliveros and had a certificate in Deep Listening from The Center For Deep Listening Institute at Rensselaer. She taught Earth School with children at the Hands on History program at the El Pueblo Museum, a community museum a part of History Colorado.

Populus tremuloides: Mary Jane Sullivan

JANUARY 16, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado 

Dr. Brian D. Linkhart is a Professor of Ornithology in the Department
of Organismal Biology and Ecology at Colorado College, where he has taught field courses in Ornithology, Ecology, and Field Biology since 2001. Previously, he was a seasonal research biologist for the U.S. Forest Service for 18 years, and he began teaching summer field seminars on forest ecology in the mid-1980s. For the past 40 years, Brian has conducted research on the population ecology of Flammulated Owls, which are tiny raptors that nest in cavities excavated by woodpeckers, often in quaking aspen trees, within old pine forests of western North America.

Populus tremuloides: Brian Linkhart

JANUARY 16, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado 

Christine Biermann, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at University of Colorado Colorado Springs, where she leads the Tree Ring Lab. Since 2007, she has been studying the annual growth rings in trees to investigate issues of environmental change in forests. With UCCS students and colleagues, Christine is currently studying how drought and warming temperatures are affecting Colorado’s alpine treeline and foothills ecosystems.

Populus tremuloides: Christine Biermann

JANUARY 16, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Marilyn A. Martorano is a Registered Professional Archaeologist with over 40 years of experience in the Rocky Mountain region. She began studying historic culturally peeled ponderosa pine trees at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in 1977. Marilyn wrote her thesis on Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) and has continued research on a variety of species including aspen and a newly-identified CMT type, bristlecone pine. Her archaeological research interests also include early Hispano settlement in southern Colorado; and lithophones, a previously-unidentified Colorado prehistoric rock artifact type exhibiting acoustical properties.

Populus tremuloides: Marilyn Martorano

JUNE 5, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Jaime Kopke is a certified Forest Therapy Guide, trained by the Association of Forest and Nature Therapy Guides and Programs (ANFT). She has worked designing public programs at museums and libraries for almost a decade, and is also a practicing artist, focusing on work that intertwines the boundaries between people and the natural world. In her years spent producing public programs, she has seen a deep desire from people to re-connect—with one another, their passions, but also with something bigger than themselves. Forest therapy provides a doorway for people to tap into a greater sense of being—through nature connection emerges cultural repair.

Populus tremuloides: Jaime Kopke

JUNE 5, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Walt Pourier is Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He currently lives in Denver, Colorado where he is the Creative Director/CEO of Nakota Designs Advertising Design & Graphics and Executive Director/Founder of the Stronghold Society, a nonprofit dedicated to instilling hope and supporting youth movements through Live Life Call To Action Campaigns. Through his fine art, graphics, brand identity, and many creative movements he supports, Walt’s focus is to share messages of hope, inspiration, and healthy ways of life. Speaking to the importance of Indigenous Knowledge in all we do and this movement being led from a 7th generation Native American youth perspective. His outreach work, through youth movements, language revitalization, suicide prevention, ending domestic violence, defending childhood initiatives, sustainable housing, and healthy food distribution has reached many communities.

Populus tremuloides: Walt Pourier

JUNE 5, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

De Lane Bredvik is a Colorado installation artist who holds a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Fine Art and a Bachelor of Art in Honor’s Art History from Southern Methodist University. After working in the field of Architecture, Bredvik became increasingly drawn to the ephemeral process of feeling, thinking, and understanding that provide the structure for creating experience. His work focuses on raising awareness of social and environmental issues, with current projects investigating quantum physics, consciousness, and cognition.

Populus tremuloides: De Lane Bredvik

AUGUST 5, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Iddo Aharony is a composer and sound-artist whose diverse body of work spans a wide variety of instrumentations, media, and interdisciplinary collaborations. In his work, he is interested in exploring the myriad intersections of sound, environment, culture, and technology. His music incorporates sounds from acoustic instruments, field recordings of natural and urban environments, found objects, and synthesis, along with real-time interactive electronic processing of these sounds. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Colorado College.

Populus tremuloides: Iddo Aharony

Performance of "cycles.scales.webs.dreams" by Iddo Aharony.

AUGUST 5, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Iddo Aharony is a composer and sound-artist whose diverse body of work spans a wide variety of instrumentations, media, and interdisciplinary collaborations. In his work, he is interested in exploring the myriad intersections of sound, environment, culture, and technology. His music incorporates sounds from acoustic instruments, field recordings of natural and urban environments, found objects, and synthesis, along with real-time interactive electronic processing of these sounds. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Colorado College.

Populus tremuloides: Iddo Aharony (cycles.scales.webs.dreams)

AUGUST 5, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Gregory Ragland is an Associate Professor of integrative biology at the University of Colorado, Denver. He studies how various critters, mainly insects, respond and evolve in response to changing environments. Burning questions include how bugs achieve suspended animation during hibernation, how they know when to ‘wake up’, and how arctic and alpine bugs stay in their happy place at extremely low temperatures. His work has included collaborations with agencies in the US, Austria, and Greece to better understand emerging crop pests and outbreaks of forest pests. When not out chasing critters, Greg thinks about how best to support students studying in the sciences through experiential learning and enhancing sense of identity and belonging in the classroom.

Populus tremuloides: Greg Ragland

AUGUST 5, 2022
Kenosha Pass, Colorado

Brandon Vogt is an Associate Professor and Graduate Director in the Department of Geography & Environmental Studies at University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Within physical geography, Dr. Vogt’s research focuses on understanding the ways in which land surface texture interacts with earth surface and atmospheric processes. Mountain weather and microclimate drive his passion in this area. His current research focus seeks to unravel some of the nuances of lightning’s interaction with topography. Dr. Vogt teaches courses in physical geography, geomorphology, meteorology, microclimate, a capstone snow and ice course in Silverton, Colorado, and co-teaches a course that explores how sound informs landscape. He emphasizes experiential learning and other high-impact educational practices and is especially proud of the ways in which he extends art into science.

Populus tremuloides: Brandon Vogt

A 1 minute excerpt from the track "Kenosha Pass Mix" on the album "Tree Talks: Populus Tremuloides" by Ben Kinsley. Buy the album at https://blackcube.art/shop

Kenosha Pass Mix (excerpt)

"Tree Talks" is an ongoing project by artist Ben Kinsley focused on understanding trees from a multitude of perspectives, one species at a time. 

The inaugural series "Populus Tremuloides" focused on quaking aspen, the most widely distributed tree in North America. Once per season, from October 2021–August 2022, the public was invited to gather within a grove of quaking aspen at Kenosha Pass, Colorado to hear lectures by experts from diverse fields—ranging from ecologists to poets—who each shared their knowledge of the tree. The sounds of these gatherings were recorded using a variety of microphones to capture human voices, scientific information, poetic and metaphysical ideas, and the sounds of the aspen and other flora and fauna of the landscape. 

The full talks are provided here. 

"Tree Talks: Populus Tremuloides" was produced by Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum and culminated in the release of a limited edition lathe cut vinyl record and publication. The record is available for purchase via the Black Cube shop (link below).

Tree Talks

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