{"id":4730,"date":"2022-09-29T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T00:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/?post_type=portfolio&p=4730"},"modified":"2025-10-09T01:33:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T01:33:03","slug":"witness-trees-smithgallery","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/portfolio\/witness-trees-smithgallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Witness Trees, Smith Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Witness Trees<\/em>, the title of Lorena Mal's first solo exhibition in the US, reflects her understanding of territories and elements in the landscape as witnesses of, and keepers of, history. Employing historical archives, and working in photography, drawing, and sculpture, Mal attempts to create a dialogue between two locales, namely her native country of Mexico and the Southeastern US, where the exhibition takes place.<\/p>

The centerpiece of the exhibition is Mal's handmade book, Psalmodia Naturalis (in x\u00f3chitl, en cu\u00edcatl)<\/em>based on a 1558-83 book of Psalms, Psalmodia Christiana, one of the earliests records of nahua poetry and an important document of the precolonial landscape. Mal's interest in this book stems from her desire to find connections between disparate people, places, and time, often through the thread of landscape and its living subjects. For the exhibition, Mal chose to focus on one botanical from the original book -the magnolia. Mal's use of photographs and pressed flowers from both Mexico and Davidson (and nearby), entwines two stories, told through the migration of a tree native to the Southeastern US, now also prevalent in the Mexican landscape.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tText by Lia Newman<\/span><\/h6>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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WITNESS TREES<\/span><\/h1>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Smith Gallery, Davidson NC, EUA<\/h6>
2022<\/h6>
Curated by Lia Newman<\/h6>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Text by Violeta Burckhardt<\/span><\/h6>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The exhibition Witness trees <\/i>is part of the evolutionary process of Lorena Mal\u2019s explorations of landscape as common ground\u2014a way of bringing diverse people, places, and time scales together. This grounding<\/i>, site-specific approach understands nature as a cultural construct and the territorial boundaries that define it as an ungraspable threshold in the face of deep time. It recognizes landscape as a perspective through which geopolitical manifestations of space can be reconfigured\u2014a modality for the reinterpretation of history based on the selection, or subtraction, of information through a collective process. By focusing on the wandering history of the Magnolia grandiflora <\/i>as her subject, the artist weaves human and non-human survival stories through the voices of plants and the ecologies that have resulted from their displacement. By reimagining trees as subjects, Mal develops new tools to understand preservation as a radical form of transformation that understands nature as a decentralized and non-anthropocentric concept.\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>
As we enter the gallery space, we feel the weight of the soft but sharp ochre color emanating from the walls behind us, forcing us to look back. The natural clay hue locks our senses \u2014a small gesture toward recognizing the importance of history in\u00a0constructing the present. The color was extracted from Cecil soil, a mixture of clay, sand, and ferric oxide found across the Magnolia grandiflora <\/i>\u2019s North American territory and habitat, and in particular, in Davidson, North Carolina, where the exhibition takes place. Born out of the weathering or oxidation of pigment, the ochre color on the walls captures life as a chemical process, linking it to our bodies through the oxygen that we also carry within our flesh.\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>
Before us lies a book. Psalmodia Naturalis (in x\u00f3chitl, in cu\u00edcatl)<\/i>, 2020-2022, rests open on top of a pedestal made from rammed earth, a mixture of local Cecil, as well as Mexican soil brought by Mal from her own home. By mixing the two soils, Mal strengthens the structure of the foundation, while acknowledging the ground as common. As an architectural and vernacular technique found across the globe, rammed earth functions as a symbol of sustainable building practices and embodied energy in mineral form. Few Cecil soils that we now encounter can be found in a virgin state. Earth, like the biotic and abiotic elements that compose it, is part of a complex and shifting mixture of land and a direct result of a mosaic and cultivated culture.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>
Spread between the pages of Mal\u2019s book, Psalmodia Naturalis (in x\u00f3chitl, in cu\u00edcatl)<\/i>\u2019s, pressed magnolia flowers surface from side to side. This majestic evergreen tree, growing over 30 meters tall, has become a ubiquitous component of gardens across a range of geographies worldwide. Though commonly regarded as native to the North American continent, its roots run deep, within a network that now extends its origin. Fossil records show that magnolias once grew in the wild as far away as Asia 100 million years ago, yet the oldest western recording is found in mesoamerican history, through illustrations of the now extremely rare Magnolia dealbata en el C\u00f3dice De la Cruz-Badiano o Libellus de Medicualibus Indoorum Herbis<\/i>. With Mal\u2019s new work Psalmodia Naturalis (in x\u00f3chitl, in cu\u00edcatl)<\/i>, Mal uses a historical archive, the Psalmodia Christiana <\/i>(1558\u20131583), where the magnolia was first recorded, as a way of unearthing pre-colonial narratives of place. Brought to life as a way of bridging ancestral and colonialist visions of landscape, this book marks an important turning point in Mexican history\u2014the moment when tradition was able to survive through the entanglement of different perspectives, images, and language forms. This combination of meaning and cultural systems, also known as syncretism, allowed pre-Hispanic tradition to survive in composite form.\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>
Psalmodia Christiana<\/i>, no longer found in its place of origin, has a migration history of its own. Now, privately owned and located in the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island, the Psalmodia Christiana <\/i>is part of a growing archive of rare books, manuscripts, and illustrations that mark the history of exploration and colonization of the \u201cNew World.\u201d Now fully digitalized and accessible online, the contents of the library are part of an interconnected community where knowledge, though locally conceived, is given the chance to live a second life through the evolution of a society that understands itself as a planetary whole. As Mal delves into the content of this book of psalms, a new landscape unravels as certain species of plants surface, page after page\u2014as relics of a live but hidden past. Through language, rhythm, and repetition, Mal paints a new image of landscape as a space for critical reflection and polyphonic lyre.\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>
Mal uses botany as a geopolitical narrative device to link indigenous thought with western scientific tradition. Written within the premises of the colonial convent of Tlatelolco, the long-forgotten Psal<\/i>modia Christiana<\/i>, originally envisioned as a book of psalms, is transformed by the artist through a process of exhumation. By reproducing her own version of this text, Mal excavates new narratives through omission, a technique that characterizes a larger body of work, and a common denominator in her research. Like reverse archeology, the artist constructs a new image by acknowledging the potential of withdrawal as a tool for emergence. The book, a map of sorts, describes the territory through a cosmology of mixture and an example of the potential of hybrid forms of history and storytelling as a way of being in and with the world. Psalmodia Naturalis <\/i>is an act of preservation through transmutation that understands landscape as a universal and timeless language.\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>
Mal\u2019s Family Trees (America: Magnolia) <\/i>consist of a series of tree ring images carved directly on top of and into red oak wood panels. The lines, based on samples included in the American Woods Archive by Romeyn Beck Hough (1857-1921), offer a dendrochronological display of the life of Magnolias, creating a topography of their own. Similar to a map, these lines follow a path of infinite repetition. These patterns contextualize the timeline hidden behind its veil as a symbol of life and continuity. Almost invisible, Mal\u2019s large-scale photographs act as a backdrop to these carved tree ring surfaces. One image is that of a tree found in the garden of her close friend Felipe in Mexico\u2014a tree that his family has taken care of for generations and under which lie the ashes of his grandparents. The second image depicts another magnolia tree from the nearby Latta Plantation Nature Preserve and former slave plantation. Both images epitomize archives of the past, living markers that link territories through montage.\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>
Witness Trees <\/i>understands history as fluid and considers song and breath as not limited to humans\u2014a metaphysical element through which the world communicates back to us. The magnolia\u2019s pressed leaves that lay hidden between the reproduction of an ancient pre-columbine text, the rammed earth of the pedestal on which it stands, the warm ochre color on the walls, and the images of magnolia trees hidden by the interrupted carved line drawings of the woody plants are all part of the same narrative, earthly compounds that through mixture can radically transform the world. The exhibition is the result of an immersive process that recognizes marginalized knowledge as fundamentally deconstructed and nature as a universal, politically laden, and unifying force. By understanding the spectator as a geologic and living matter, Lorena Mal offers a stage to contemplate the landscape through active spectatorship and the\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Psalmodia Naturalis (Magnolia \u2013 Yolloxochitl \u2013 Magnolia Grandiflora)<\/b><\/i><\/p>

2022<\/span><\/p>

Papel de algod\u00f3n, tinta, corteza de \u00e1rbol y ores prensadas, pedestal de tierra compactada hecho de tierra de Davidson conocida como Cecil soil y tierra de Ciudad de M\u00e9xico<\/span><\/p>

13.5 x 18.5cm (libro), 110 x 35 x 25 cm (pedestal)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

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Mal\u2019s Family Trees (America: Magnolia)<\/b><\/i><\/p>

2022<\/p>

Grabado de madera sobre roble rojo, mural fotogr\u00e1fico (lugar de entierro de personas esclavizadas en la Plantaci\u00f3n Latta Reserva Natural, Carolina del Norte)<\/i><\/p>

dimensiones variables<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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Mal\u2019s Family Trees (America: Magnolia)<\/b><\/i><\/p>

\u00a02022<\/p>

Grabado de madera sobre roble rojo, mural fotogr\u00e1fico (lugar de entierro de los abuelos de Felipe, casa de Coyoac\u00e1n en Ciudad de M\u00e9xico)<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

dimensiones variables\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Publicaciones<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\"\"<\/div><\/a>

Witness Trees<\/a><\/h3>

Consultar<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div> \n <\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/article>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Solo exhibition. Smith Gallery, 2022<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"portfolio_category":[33,35],"portfolio_tag":[68],"class_list":["post-4730","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_category-exhibiciones","portfolio_category-recientes","portfolio_tag-obra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/4730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4730"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/4730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6266,"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/4730\/revisions\/6266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"portfolio_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_category?post=4730"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lorenamal.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_tag?post=4730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}