This public art performance is a response to the crime against humanity currently happening in the Amazon rainforest committed by corporations and the Brazilian government. The durational performance presented by AnarkoArtLab involves two artists, Adriana Varella and Amy Gillian Wilson, ritualistically dragging a burnt and smoking tree throughout New York City. In the third and final iteration of the performance, the two pulled the tree over seven miles, from Bed-Stuy to Times Square, concluding the piece in the midst of a protest.

When a specific landmark in the city was reached, such as Central Park or Times Square, the artists took the public out of their comfort zone by disrupting the environment with a brief performance. Varella called forth those present by reciting phrases into a megaphone regarding the crisis and spraypainting “corporations” on the ground. Liters of fake blood were poured on top of the word as Wilson flailed her body in the pool, with one hundred dollar bills scattered across the asphalt of the street.

To take the passivity out of the audience, people were asked to “scream for their lives” into the megaphone. This created an intense dialogue not only with the artists but the city itself. The landscape generated simulates the despair of today’s society, which lives blind and enslaved to the system of capitalist corporations. Are we seeking a parallel world? Can we even imagine a possible solution? Are we all responsible for this?