THANK A TREE: The Canopy Continues

THANK A TREE: The Canopy Continues
Presented by Living Studio at Memento Projects
In collaboration with Green Religion

Following two wonderful Thank a Tree gatherings at FLORA Native Garden Center and, most recently, Green Space Miami, we are deeply grateful for the enthusiastic response. Now, the canopy continues as Thank a Tree comes to Memento Projects on October 10, held in conjunction with the exhibition INTERTIDAL STATES during Florida Climate Week™, presented by VoLo Foundation.

Join environmental artist, science communicator, and Living Studio founder Lauren Reilly alongside artist, designer, gardener, and Green Religion founder John DeFaro for a free participatory eco-art workshop and discussion exploring observation, creativity, gratitude, and our connections with the living world.

Lauren and John will introduce Living Studio, Green Religion, the Thank a Tree project, and the concept of Climate AWEARness. They will share how their creative practices and interests in observation, participation, and environmental storytelling shaped this collaboration before opening the conversation to participants’ own experiences, memories, and observations of trees and nature.

Participants will create small, freestanding three-dimensional collage assemblages using printed imagery of artworks, trees, and landscapes, repurposed papers, and found materials such as beads, ribbon, yarn, string, and sticks. Through cutting, layering, folding, and assembling, participants will transform these materials into sculptural forms.

No artistic experience is necessary, only curiosity and a willingness to participate.

Guests are encouraged to explore INTERTIDAL STATES, a group exhibition curated by Lauren Reilly and featuring work by Reilly, John DeFaro, Kenzie Funk, and Shelby Slayen. The exhibition expands the workshop’s themes through artistic responses to nature, environmental change, and our place within the larger ecosystem.

Participants may photograph their completed work and contribute, if they wish, to Lauren Reilly’s ongoing online Thank a Tree story-mapping platform. Everyone will leave with their sculpture and an invitation to continue noticing and documenting their own experiences with the living world.