Culture pour tous

Entre 2 Arbres (Between 2 Trees)

A forest of hammocks, a siesta for the forest

The siesta has held a special place in Johanna Autin’s life for quite some time. Since September 2009, she began a process to study the art of the siesta by holding hammock-making workshops. Through sewing workshops held in popular education centres and using recycled materials, the artist set herself the goal of making 200 hammocks. She hopes to continue by installing these hammocks between “2 trees” (hence the title of the project) in a wooded urban area in Montreal during a Siesta Day in August 2010.

This Siesta Day will be marked by a collective citizen action: a siesta in the forest with the project collaborators and persons invited among the public to join in the creation of this dream. The collective siesta will be photographed from every angle so as to mount an exhibition in 2011 as part of the second Siesta Day edition. This is at least the game plan Johanna Autin developed with the organizational support of Exeko, an organization dedicated to the development, production, and support of responsible sociocultural projects.

“And if there were a hammock between 2 trees?”

The artist states that she has always enjoyed relaxing in hammocks. And one day, while walking in the forest she pictured a hammock between two trees, and then another hammock and then a multitude; as though a crowd of people had gathered for a joint celebration of the art of the siesta and transformed the forest. Following up on this vision, and based on her conviction that “people really want to have a hammock,” she decided to get them one. The idea was to take on a life of its own well beyond this inspired walk.

Johanna Autin acted on her idea and went to the Comité social Centre-Sud with the proposal to hold hammock-making workshops during the Journées de la culture, on September 25 and 26, 2009. After three workshops, over 25 participants from various walks of life contributed to making 16 hammocks. Though still falling quite short of the goal of 200 hammocks, the process was now definitely under way.

Welcome to the Hamacothèque

The artist subsequently created the website "Entre 2 arbres" and launched the Hamacothèque, a hammock lending service that aims to gather information about the art of the siesta. Anybody can borrow a hammock free of cost and try it out for one week—a renewable loan, meant, as she clarifies, “to introduce people to the joy of the hammock.”

In exchange for this loan, the artist provides the borrower with a card on which to note the number of siesta hours spent and the impressions they left. She describes this document as “your siesta diary in which you can record these moments and follow your progress.” Continuing in her quest, the artist suspended several hammocks in places she frequents and at the project’s partner organizations, and here too she collected comments to further her understanding of the art of the siesta.

It is still too early to know what will become of these notes. Johanna Autin has begun her M.F.A. at Concordia University and the project Entre 2 arbres will accompany her until the end of her university studies. Her approach is based on relational art, which is characterized by creating close links with the public during specific actions unfolding in the context of a participatory creative process.

Still in collaboration with the Comité social Centre-Sud, the sewing workshops should start up in the spring of 2010 and be scheduled until 2011. The artist also hopes to count on the participation of other centres among the six members of the Alliance des centres d'éducation populaire de Montréal. Several among them already have spaces equipped with garment cutting tables and high-end sewing machines that can pierce through the thick fabric used to make hammocks.

Towards an environmental approach to art

The "Entre 2 arbres" project has a very playful component: it is a source of fun, promotes social development and environmental awareness. Made of recycled materials the hammocks are solid and functional. They are available in different coulours and sizes. Rodi Design, a sofa manufacturer, provides the artist with sofa cover offcuts which are used as the hammock fabric, and the ropes serving to suspend the hammocks consist of used mountaineering rope donated by the rock climbing centre Horizon Roc. This twofold collaboration with businesses was in part made possible through the help of a recently founded organization, Matériaux pour les arts Montréal, which manages an interactive bank of materials (available or sought after) to be used for artistic purposes.

In order to ensure that the Siesta day becomes an event, "Entre 2 arbres" is currently developing partnerships with other structures, organizations and actors from the ecology and environmental awareness-raising milieu. If all goes as planned, the first edition of Siesta Day will be held on August 22, 2010 in Mont-Royal park—an emblematic site for Montrealers. Nevertheless, several permits must still be obtained from the City before this date becomes official. For its part the second edition is confirmed for 2011, and will take place in parc Lafontaine with the support of Art Neuf, the organization that runs the Centre culturel Calixa-Lavallée located in the heart of the park. On this occasion Entre 2 arbres will present all the stages of the project as well as photographs documenting its lengthy production process.

One can of course draw parallels between Slow Day, which takes place every June in parc Lafontaine since 2001, and the international slowfood movement, but these events are not driven by the same artistic intention. "Entre 2 arbres" is primarily an individual art project, which also includes the practical component of making hammocks.

Johanna Autin evokes the siesta as a moment of calm and freedom, and dedicating a day to it is for her a “wonderful pretext to bring people back to the forest.”