"I don't know if it's true what we read in books, that in ancient times a monkey that had left Rome jumping from one tree to another could reach Spain without ever touching the ground"

 

Italo Calvino. The rampant baron

 

 

 

 

Italo Calvino, the rampant baron, tells us that in other times, the surface of the earth was so wooded, that we could go from one place to another on the planet without almost touching the ground, always going over the trees. Counting trees (on the way to the river, in the middle, from Bell-lloc to Alcoletge), is a simple action that somehow refers to this concept, to its possibility or impossibility. It is about following, walking along a path in the plain of Lleida, and counting the trees along it. By way of an inventory, a conceptual analysis is proposed, an opening to dialogue, to the elaboration of a critique and a discourse, which is generated from these images.

 

As the supposed weeds of the fields - weed vegetation - the trees have been eliminated from the fields, ditches and borders of our territory, because they reduce the supposed productivity of the soil, make shade around which nothing grows, or suck the water from the land and its nutrients. Until now, these have been places where farmers could rest, places where they could be sheltered from the heat of the strong and dry summers of the plains. We are perhaps witnessing a reification of the trees, their reduction to a pure form of weekend getaway contemplation. A reflection for us to think about.

 

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Olga Olivera-Tabeni. Counting trees (on the way to the river, in the middle, from Bell-lloc to Alcoletge. Colective Larva. La Gòtica. Institut d'Estudis Ilerdencs, Lleida.

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