‘The 100-year-old sycamore tree next to the cemetery knows like
no other what it is like to grieve, to mourn. She knows how to say goodbye without losing a piece of yourself. She has seen it all, could she be my mentor?’

With this project, Janneke initiates a dialogue with old Sycamore trees throughout the city of Utrecht. With handmade (ecological friendly) paint, she writes questions on their bark, in an attempt to receive advise from living beings that have seen city and people change over multiple human generations. Since Sycamore trees are equipped with a regenerating type of bark that falls off every year, the work has a temporary character, respecting nature’s rhytm of growth and decay.

‘Where will my questions go when the tree renews her bark? Will there be an answer? Or will the letters simply disappear, and is this what I need to learn: to let go.’