If These Trees Could Talk: Inside the minds behind the New Media department and STEAM Studio collaboration

In a collaborative effort between the UNC Asheville STEAM Studio and the New Media department, students and faculty came together for the installation of “If These Trees Could Talk.”

“It was cathartic to actually make something together, talk about it and be in a community to build it and remember it,” said Leslie Rosenberg, STEAM Studio Technician. 

The installation, located on the third floor of Owen Hall at UNCA, is a multimedia piece featuring sculpted stumps serving as platforms for animations and oral histories. Students in New Media 350: Intermediate Video collaborated to create animations featuring stories of those affected by Hurricane Helene and the STEAM Studio created sculpted stumps, according to Rosenberg.

Rosenberg said she had been planning an installation with holograms as a personal project with Lecturer of New Media Forest Gamble after attending an event at Black Mountain College called “Peppers Ghosts” together. Then the hurricane hit and they decided to make it about the event and involve students. 

“The goal was to make something together,” Rosenberg said. “In that process of making, there is a lot of healing.”

Gamble, lecturer of the intermediate course, said Hurricane Helene was one of the most profound events he has lived through and after experiencing it, he wanted to reflect on it.

“I think because we got so many people involved, coming up with so many perspectives, everybody can use it and put a little bit of themselves into it as well,” Gamble said.

Getting a broad variety of perspectives and other people’s voices out there is very significant to not forgetting the event, according to Gamble.

Since the hurricane, Gamble created three projects about the hurricane and other natural disasters and how the communities come together after. 

“I’m still processing in a lot of ways,” he said.

While both Rosenberg and Gamble had parts as facilitators of the installation, Rosenberg said she feels like she can’t take ownership of it. Gamble agreed it was a huge community endeavor.

With the help of many students, interviewees, musicians and more, about 35 people came together to bring the vision to life.

Senior New Media student Emily Parks was on the animation team in Gambles’ class, creating two different animations. 

“We wanted to not only have animations about the destruction of storms, we also wanted to have the rebirth of it,” Parks said.

One of her animations is a walkie-talkie, as she was a Resident Assistant during the Hurricane, and the other is a house with the lights turning back on, symbolizing the community regaining power.

“We wanted to have an optimistic ending because the community has come so far,” she said. 

According to Parks, her animations were very connected to her experience. The installation is a collection of memories of before and after the hurricane.

“It was really awesome for me to see how much making the art was helping us deal with it,” Parks said. “We came together and did this together.”