Exclosure (the museum forest)

Exclosure is taken in a single 15-minute shot during a visit to the Auwahi Forest Restoration Project on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 2017. Art Medeiros leads a group of artists into the field to observe a lone and aged ‘Iliahi alo’e (sandalwood) tree up close. The tree, which could not be placed within the reserve’s protective exclosure, assumes the role of precious objet d’art and visitors in turn take up their roles as avid museum-goers, taking in the scene through lens, sketchpad and guided tour. Medeiros poses the ques- tion of how we might hold precious what is also alive and abundant before it enters the realm of the “museum forest”, a phrase he coined to describe ecologies in crisis like Auwahi.