My newest STEAMplant collaboration is “To the Core of Me: A Hike Play”

I have been very fortunate to be a collaborator on a number of Pratt STEAMplant (@prattsteamplant) projects. The latest is called “To the Core of Me: A Hike Play” and supports Sirovich Family Resident Jeremy Pickard (@jeremy_pickard). My Pratt colleague, anthropologist Jennifer Telesca, is also a collaborator on the project.

Core of Me will be a “hike-play”, an outdoor experience that combines the joys of hiking with an interactive performance. We are still working out what that will mean, but one thing that we do know is that dendrochronology will be a source of both information and metaphor for the project. I know very little about dendrochronology: upon encountering this recently-removed tree in Astoria Park, I was able to estimate an approximate age (94 years!) and see that growth varied quite a bit from year-to-year, but that is about all I got when it comes to tree rings. So I am excited that we will also be collaborating with Dr. Nicole Davi (@dendrodavi) of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who will help us understand how the history of climate change can be read in the rings of a tree.