The Giving Tree - Robin Banks - Meet our Grantees

Progress on The Giving Tree

Rendering of The Giving Tree

During the 2008, Black Rock Arts Foundation Grant Cycle, we gave artist Robin Banks $8,000 to complete his installation, The Giving Tree.

The Giving Tree Project is an interactive, part wind-powered, part human-powered sculpture of a 30 foot tree. It is designed to generate it's own power by harnessing the movement of tree branches and leaves in the wind, a currently untapped source of mechanical wind energy. Participants will also be able to generate more energy in an interactive playground, by swinging on swings attached to the tree. As power is generated twofold, The Giving Tree comes alive with lights, pumping water and sound, and shows the circulatory system of the tree's xylem and phloem system within.

Globally the aim of this project is to promote the prevention of de-forestation in places where illegal lumbering is a way of survival by teaching that trees can be a valuable asset of wind energy to us if just left standing, powering rural farms and villages off the grid.

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See the debut of The Giving Tree at The Do Lab's Lucent L'Amour event, February 14, 2009 in downtown Los Angeles, Ca. http://lucentlamour.thedolab.com