(Making) Kin: Narratives of an Ash Tree

Abstract

Ash trees are facing extinction in North America from the accidental introduction of an invasive insect called the Emerald Ash Borer. The event is a disruption to the forest ecosystem as well as to relationships of care between local knowledge and action (craft) that have existed for generations. The thesis borrows from a multi-species methodology that recognizes that all bodies are kin, both human and not, enmeshed in a dense network of relations. It is also driven by a process of making that develops architectural and object scale strategies for the use of ash wood. By tracing the trajectory of ash trees over the course of their extinction, this thesis proposes architectural interventions and material explorations that renegotiate relationships of care and craft across disparate temporal intersections in the forests of Nova Scotia.