Sarah Anne Johnson acquired by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Sarah Anne Johnson's first major work, Tree Planting (2002-05), which was also the artist's thesis project, has been acquired by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY.

 

The photographs in Tree Planting chronicle a common rite-of-passage for many Canadians; planting trees in deforested areas of Manitoba. The young adults who participate in these conservation trips are paid per sapling, but Johnson shares that what keeps them returning is the rewarding sense of community and connection to the land that the work engenders.

 

Tree Planting is composed of two types of images: photographs of people and locals that Johnson took over the course of three summers, and shots of hand-crafted clay dolls and miniature dioramas that the artist constructed later in her studio.

 

Presented together salon-style on the wall, these two sets of images stand in tension, but also complement one another to present a more complete account of the experience, expressing the mundane, physical realities of the labor—bug bites, bandaged arms, rain-soaked and mud-caked clothes—and, simultaneously, the sublimity of nature and a nostalgic longing for what Johnson calls “the closest thing I’ve found to Utopia.”

 

Find out more on the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's website.

March 1, 2005