TREEreadRED: Book Reference

Photo & Book Peter Solness – LINK

In 1996 John Burbury owned Woodbury House adjoining the RED TREE Site and John was an important contributor to the project – especially when the local Council said they had doubts about the proposal. When in September that year someone burnt the REDreadTREE down, well it looked like its message had been destroyed for John and as he said "just for the sake of someone getting full at the pub and saying 'lets go and burn the bastard down".

So as he said "I got wild and wrote a poem". It was called 'The Red Trees' Lament' and in part it says:

"When man stands up for an ideal
To improve his lot and others
He sends forth little rays of hope
to shine down on his brothers.


This ray then soon becomes a light
That grows into a beam
A beacon for the hopes of man
Not just another dream."

John was a regular contributor the ABC's morning Talk Back Radio and almost always with a poem relevant to the day and something got him going. Sadly John passed away in 1998.

THE REDreadTREE and The Green Campaign

Click on the heading for more information about the bookClick on an image to enlarge

Helen Gee's "For The Forests" was published in 2001 and documented th REDreadTREE & TREEreadRED in a 'Green Context.' The book also documents The Greens using an image of REDreadTREE on the cover of their magazine "The Daily Planet" July-August 1996.

TREEreadRED: Snapped @ 110 K

Photo: Ray Arnold 1998

Since May 1996 people have driven drive by the REDreadTREE and later the TREEreadRED site and taken photographs. They have imagined it in all kinds of ways and it would be good to receive copies of the images people have made over the years. Various artists have done painting as well and some have turned up as entries in various competitions.

TREEreadRED: Fire Event

On the evening before TREEreadRED was launched by Landcare's James Hardy there was a Fire Event facilitated by the Tunbridge/Woodbury community. Since the TREEreadRED was burnt it seemed appropriate to baptise the word that replaced the tree with FIRE. It was a quite event and noticed by just a few passers by on the Midlands Highway.

Acknowledgements: Ray Norman – Initiating Artist, Jack Jaffray – Chainsaw Carving, John Burbury – Landholder & Bush Poet, Tunbridge Fire Brigade – The Fire, Simon Cuthbert – Photography, David Hansen – Cultural Theory, The Midlands Community – Site Works, Tractor Hire, Moral Support & BEER

THE DAY THE RED TREE BURNT

Sometime in August the REDreadTREE was graffitied with faux Aboriginal type marks. Was this a poor attempt to blame shift? Then in the early hours of 18th September 1996 the REDreadTREE was set on fire and destroyed. On site there were burnt off branched scattered about and a burnt out stump. Some people set about trying to find the culprits. But what were they going to do with them? Get them to put the REDreadTREE back?

Perhaps this REDreadTREE was telling these chaps something that was unwelcomed? One day someone will ask them maybe?

Rumour has it that the culprits are now quite well known some years on. It seems that if you do do something like this and get a little drunk at the local you are enclined to boast a little. Almost nothing goes unnoticed in Tasmania.

Interestingly, the photograph here was provided by a photo journalist – Simon Wearne – who was just happening to be passing by. Any other burning tree in the Midlands might go relatively unnoticed but this one one had a story. The story of the REDreadTREE burning made the Examiner & Mercury and all the TV & radio news broadcasts in Tasmania. So did the original painting.

THEreadTREE SITE: Woodbury House Woodbury TAS

Click on the image to enlarge

A link to an ABC story about Woodbury House next to the
REDreadTREE site and also under this cloud.
Click Here

WATCH THIS SPACE: THE RED TREE ANTILL PONDS TASMANIA

This article appeared in siglo7 1996

"Why are the trees in the Midlands of Tasmania dying?" It seems that people in the 'middle zone' have been asking this simple question for some time, without a definite answer. What are these dead trees telling us? Who is listening; or for that matter, who is looking? Indeed, who in
their dash through the 'middle zone' were landliterate enough to read the signs of impending disaster?

Is some micro-organism killing these trees? Is it a virus, a bacterium, a fungus? Where did it come from? Or is the problem chemical rather than biological, or both? Who is responsible, and who pays?

Why is it that the affected area so closely mirrors colonial settlement? Is it the sheep and crops, or the fifteen possums to the hectare? Perhaps the trees are just 'old', or perhaps it is the 'ten years drought'. Maybe it is because of the western cultural imperative to civilize land and make it work for us? But who is Us? interest collectors? tax gatherers? dividend reapers? exporters? farmers? environmental activists? Have fools taken charge of paradise?

And why are the trees dying in the 'Middle'? Is this region on the margins, or at the centre? Why order the world in such a way as to mark out a zone that is neither north nor south, but peripheral to urban concern? Was it to create an exploitation zone? Was it to define territory(s)?

How can one dead tree talk about such things, and who will listen? Was it because the Red Tree's questions were read (albeit at 110 kph), that it was scrawled upon and ultimately burnt to the ground?

Ray Norman. Artist: The red tree November 1996

On 13th May 1996 a dead tree was painted red as part of a Landcare 'Landmark Project' The tree stood on Woodbury Farm beside the main north-south highway at Antill Ponds (a point half-way between Hobart and Launceston in the imagination of many Tasmanians) Sometime in August the Landcare Landmark was graffitied, and in the early hours of 18th September 1996 the Red Tree was set on fire and destroyed. In March 1997 the word TREE was installed on the place the original REDreadTREE stood.

It is said that about a million people drive past this site each year. Obviously some of those people are the same people doing so again and again. Things keep happening on this site, people watch and as this site develops some of those stories might be told if people tell them. As they say WATCH THIS SPACE.

Click on map to enlarge