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Announcer: This is a Getty
podcast.

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[Rising, meditative music]

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Lilit Sadoyan: Hello, I’m
Lilit Sadoyan, the host of

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OMMM, Our Museum Mindfulness
Meditation podcast,

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Getty’s first video podcast.

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Welcome to the Deeper Dive,
where we explore the themes

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of our weekly episodes
with experts in everything

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from paintings conservation
to mountain climbing.

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Aroussiak Gabrielian: All of
these lenses were attempts at

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getting us to really see not
only the intelligence and the

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agency, but really to see the
tree as another living being.

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Sadoyan: This week, we did
a grounding tree meditation

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inspired by Théodore Rousseau’s
Forest of Fontainebleau, Cluster

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of Tall Trees Overlooking
the Plain of Clair-Bois

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at the Edge of Bas-Bréau.

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I spoke with landscape
architect and artist, Aroussiak

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Gabrielian, to understand more
about how we as humans can build

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personal relationships to trees
and the landscapes around us.

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Now, let’s dive in.

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[on video call] Aroussiak,
thank you so much

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for joining me today.

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Gabrielian: Of course.

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Thank you for having me.

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Sadoyan: So the reason why I
thought of you in connection

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with this episode was because
you designed a happening

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at the Getty Center in
connection with Earth Month.

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So can you start off by telling
us more about that work?

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Gabrielian: So the piece that
I staged at the Getty Garden

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for Earth Day activation was a
meditation, a guided meditation

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with a tree, of a particular
tree, a Peruvian pepper tree

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that’s in the garden at the
Getty, and it was about a

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20-minute guided meditation.

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And one of the things I was
responding to is this notion

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of plant blindness, which
is a cognitive bias that we

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humans have in relation to
the biophysical world, and

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particularly plant matter,
where we do not necessarily

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see the intelligence and the
agency of species, um, of

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particular and specific species.

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Everything kind of blends
into a background condition

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for us, a background noise.

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And as a piece within a larger
body of work that stages

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encounters, very intimate
encounters with biophysical

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matter, the piece for me was
about attuning ourselves to

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the intelligence of this tree.

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And intelligence here I was
looking through multiple lenses.

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Um, there was a kind of
scientific angle that the

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meditation took us through to
really understand the—what we

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were hearing in terms of the
internal sounds of the tree.

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It was speaking about a kind
of spiritual angle by looking

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at what the tree has meant to
the indigenous cultures, where

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the tree has originated from
and how it was used for them.

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It went through also
philosophical questions, and all

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of these lenses were attempts
at getting us to really see not

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only the intelligence and the
agency, but really to see the

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tree as another living being,
and to connect with it on a

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really bodily, um, bodily level.

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Bodily level, but
also intellectual level.

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It was trying to fire at
all, kind of—trying to do

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multiple things at once.

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But the goal was to
really attune ourselves

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to the intelligence and
to the agency of this as

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a living, sensing being.

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Sadoyan: That’s incredible,
and actually something that

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really resonated with me about
your work is that kinship

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that we have with trees, that
they’re, you know, sensorily

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alive co-beings and not just
objects in a landscape to

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be perceived, but that, you
know, we have this reciprocal

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embodied relationship with them.

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Which is also what reminded
me of this—the painting

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for this week’s episode,
Théodore Rousseau’s Forest

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of Fontainebleau, and how
he just immersed himself

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in nature and incessantly
sketched from the landscape

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in which he found himself.

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Um, so I’m wondering then
how it is that you came to

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do this work and what informs
your—both your academic work

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and your artistic practice?

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Gabrielian: Great question.

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I think… in retrospect,
reflecting back on the

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influences that brought me
to, um, having an interest

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in the biophysical world and
landscape in particular, I think

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there’s been multiple places
and sources of inspiration

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on an intellectual level.

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But on a personal level,
I, you know, I was born in

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Armenia, in the capital, in
Yerevan, and I grew up

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with my grandparents and my
grandfather in particular, who

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spent most of his youth in the
southernmost town of Armenia

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bordering Iran, actually.

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It’s the last town
before the Araks River,

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across which is Iran.

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It’s a completely
different ecological and

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climactic context there.

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But the people there
are very land-oriented.

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Um, there’s a lot of land-based
practices that he grew up with.

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And wanting us to experience
both ways of life, we...you

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know, we spent half the year
living in the city of Yerevan

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where we went to school, where
they worked, and then half

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the year in the mountains
and forests of Dilijan, where

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we grew everything we ate.

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And it was really
remarkable on two levels.

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One was observing the elders
in my household tending to

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the land, which was very
ritualistic, very embodied,

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and it was, you know, also very
precise in terms of the science

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required for particular species
to grow and to sustain us.

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And on the other hand, being
able to, and allowed to, wander

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in nature, in the forest, in the
density of the thicket of the

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forests in Dilijan, which if you
know the geography, it’s a kind

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of a really mystical part of the
country, usually covered in fog.

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There’s a lot of swamps,
a lot of wild mushrooms.

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There’s a lot of
mushroom foraging.

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And, you know, I just spent
hours kind of in my own world,

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immersed in the forest, and I
think both of those, uh, were

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very formative experiences in
shaping not only my worldview

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and understanding of me
and the world, but also my

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interest towards nature and
natural systems and ecologies.

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So those would be the
original, probably, seeds

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that brought me to where I am.

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Sadoyan: Sounds awe-inspiring
and I can imagine how

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influential that was for you.

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Um, funnily enough, Rousseau
also, before moving permanently

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and settling permanently in
Barvazan, summered near the

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forest of Fontainebleau and
then retreated to the city,

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to Paris, during the winter.

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So he, too, was
splitting his time.

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Gabrielian: Interesting.

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Sadoyan: Finally, I’m
wondering if you could leave

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us with an exercise, perhaps
something you do yourself,

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as a means to connect
with trees or with nature.

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Gabrielian: Probably not
something specifically

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tree-oriented, but one of
the things I have my students

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do as they are tasked

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with representing the dynamism
of the natural world, the

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fact that it’s changeable,
the fact that, that there’s

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seasonalities, um, is

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to really—and they have
to, you know, document and

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represent that in multiple ways.

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But one of the things I ask them
to do is really to slow down

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and change the temporality that
we’re used to functioning and

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moving through the world with.

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And I don’t know if

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you remember this, but during
the COVID lockdown where

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life slowed down, because we
were forced to, there were so

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many people who were finally
noticing things that were

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always in their surroundings
but that they had never slowed

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down to actually notice.

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And there’s, I think, a real
power to shifting the lens

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through which we look at the
world and operate in the world.

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So changing the temporality that
we typically move through the

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world with, slowing down, and
really observing and witnessing

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that which is in front of
us, does so much in terms of

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perceptual, kind of, sharpening
and attunement, to really

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notice how light is hitting a
particular leaf, the angle of

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a particular branch, the insect
that might land there for a

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split second and then fly off.

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These things are, I think, so
valuable in understanding not

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only, uh, the kind of ecosystems
that surround us, but how

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everything is interconnected
and how everything kind of works

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together and in support of each
other in the biophysical world.

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Sadoyan: Yeah, and really
allowing ourselves to

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be moved by it, right?

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Gabrielian: Yes, exactly.

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Sadoyan: Yeah.

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Well, thank you so much
for sharing your insights.

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I hope that our visitors
will come and slow down

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with Rousseau’s painting.

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But thank you so much
again, Aroussiak, for

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joining us for this episode.

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Gabrielian: Of course.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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[Theme music plays]

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Sadoyan: To find the related
meditation and see images,

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transcripts, and additional
resources, visit our website

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at Getty dot edu slash OMMM.

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That’s O-M-M-M.