Dialogues with Friends and Colleagues.
Goto and Collins are particularly interested in ideas about the relationship between art, ethics and aesthetics. They have decided to study this by focusing upon the largest living things on earth: trees.
Goto focuses upon the development of empathic relationships across species; it is an attention that necessitates a shift in thinking about trees as living things, rather than inanimate, mechanical objects. Collins has been interested in how art can make small contribution to the freedom of people, places and things. These ideas are informed by theory and history but ultimately tested through practice. The work can be described as a pursuit of aesthetic truth through dialogue and discourse with colleagues as well as interested parties. In the following dialogues, challenging questions are raised about authenticity, authorship, empathy, emancipation and freedom, empathy vs. sympathy, aesthetic truth vs. scientific truth, and appropriate voice vs. misrepresentation.