Trees as Resource

Interview 24: Circle of Blue Spruce

"We're standing inside the room made by five variants on coniferous pine trees. These are all young because they are hidden behind a large building. So, you have the triangle [of concealment to the] north of the building, and beyond this triangle's [area] are larger trees. The inside here is barren and the floor is made of pine needles. I wonder if people hang out here. I see a pigeon bone."

Within Park Mirze i Davora there is one triangularly shaped area that would have been shielded from sniper view by neighbouring buildings. Today, most of the trees in this park are between 150-200 years old and were likely planted during Austro-Hungarian Times. However, there is one exception to that assessment: the five spruce trees within the triangle of protection. In the place of trees cut for firewood, these five spruce were planted in their stead during the war. See the article excerpt below. The Location: Park Mirze i Davora, Sarajevo 71000.

War and trees: The destruction and replanting of the urban and peri-urban forest of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina by Igor Lacan Joe R.McBride:

"Amazingly, despite the hardships experienced in besieged Sarajevo, plans were made during the siege for replanting the city. Though these plans could not be implemented at the time, Sarajevans recognized the importance of (re)planting some trees as symbols of faith in the future of their city and as an act of defiance. This led to the transporting by the United Nations of a few Colorado blue spruce saplings from one of the Park-Sarajevo nurseries outside city. These were planted (by V. Beus and S. Hećo) adjacent to the President's Building, and are growing well today. Additionally, seed of horse chestnut and ginkgo in storage within the city were planted at abandoned army barracks by S. Hećo of Park-Sarajevo (Delić, personal communication), who subsequently hand-watered the seedlings potentially exposing himself to sniper fire."

Comments

Method & Archive Organization

The image above depicts a draft version of our archive as a fold-out map. Our walk and the 31 interviewed trees are drawn sectionally along the long paper. Relevant archival photos, taken photos, stories told by residents of Sarajevo, article quotations, and video stills. This assemblage is proposed to be reformatted and presented in an atlas format, with the addition of the tree interview text and contextual drawings. The image below is a diagram of our working method, showing how the different parts of our process come together in a 'Tree Atlas of Sarajevo' (that we're currently working on).

Trees as Militarized Bodies

Interview 32: Wounded Lindens along the Miljacka "Trees exposed to open fire were spared as they were too dangerous to be logged. As a consequence of the shelling, they still bear traces from shrapnel and bullets. If a tree is wounded physically by the shelling it creates scar tissues around the wound or even around the piece inside it, similar to scar tissue that forms knobs and bulges. In protected places some trees were planted, presumably fruit trees for food, as well as fast-growing conifers for firewood." From an interview with Sead Vojnikovic Location: Vilsonovo šetalište, Sarajevo 71000. The Heroes of Treca Gimnazijy: A war school in Sarajevo, 1992-1995: "Carrying all these nice memories from my school days in Treca Gimnazija, memories of endless laughs and the fun we had - playing soccer in the backyard, holding hands and strolling down Wilson Promenade with my high school sweetheart, I was deeply saddened and horrified when I f...