Artist Collab Spotlight: Carrying Root Collective
Create Forest is all about discovering new talents and making rad collaborations. We recently sat down with one of our recent collab, Carrying Root Collective, to learn more about their inspirations. Read more or snag a Create Forest x Carrying Root Collective tee for your next adventure and impress your friends:
Carrying Root Collective on Create Forest
Intro
What's your artist name?
- Carrying Root Collective
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
- Story: We are Allison Henry and Kelly Zantingh, long time bush pals and art school friends who decided to start a collective together in the summer of 2016. Since then we have been making photo and print-based projects, including t shirts, patches, prints, books and zines. We also create sculpture, installation, video, and drawing projects that exist in a fine art context. Our work centers on ecology, the production of raw materials and the human impact on landscape, often referencing our experience of tree planting in British Columbia and our love for foraging in the woods. We collaborate with other artists and communities as a means to increase the accessibility of art and to reach a larger public.
Where are you based?
- Montréal
How long have you been making art/drawing/illustrating?
- We started working together in the summer of 2016 but have been making art independently for as long as we can remember. We both studied art at the University of Guelph.
What tools/software do you use for your art/illustrations?
- Indesign, photoshop, final cut pro, screen printing and block printing.
What keeps you awake at nite?
- The fact that people eat tortured animals everyday...
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- Hopefully not planting. Possibly living in Berlin running our own gallery/workshop space/print shop/vegan cafe.
What's your favourite hiking trail or camping spot?
- Favourite camping spot: on top of the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado.
- Favourite hiking trail: Kalalau Trail on Kauai, Hawaii, hiking to the point of rose spit in Haida Gwaii.
Who are your favourite artists?
- Katie Patterson, Margaret Kilgallen, Allison Schulnik, Timber Timbre, Tom Waits and Tyler The Creator.
Treeplanting
What brought you into treeplanting?
- To explore the remote areas of Canada, the prospect of making lots of money and meeting other like minded folks.
What’s your favorite treeplanting story?
- Hosting an art market/museum day at our camp on Williston Lake near Mackenzie, BC, where we displayed our lucky finds from the woods, such as skulls, rocks, mushrooms, and other plant species.
- Finding the ‘carrying root’, a beautiful and strange driftwood formation we came across that had a distinct heart resemblance with a handle and no functionality.
- When we made our first collaborative project, a spiral driftwood ephemeral land sculpture, also on the beaches of Williston Lake.
What are 3 things you like about treeplanting?
- The nomadic lifestyle
- The engagement with nature this job allows
- Meeting other rad artist types and inspiring individuals
What are 3 things you dislike about treeplanting?
- Patriarchy
- Fuck arounds
- No chocolate after work
Artwork
We’re currently working on a large scale drawing depicting a city complex in a tree and a repurposed furniture piece being overcome by fungus. We have also recently completed a photobook of tree planter portraits and plan to expand it into a larger volume.
Exhibition
Carrying Root Collective's first exhibition/book launch/art market is on March 3rd at the Glass Door Gallery in Montréal! Don't miss out and check out their Facebook event.
Interested in a collab with Create Forest? Check out this page.
Stay in touch with Carrying Root Collective's work on Instagram, on their website or by email. Snag a Create Forest x Carrying Root Collective tee for your next adventure and impress your friends: