Donna Bassin Stitches Kintsugi Thread Into Ancient Tree Portraits at Karuizawa Foto Festival
During the Karuizawa Foto Festival, Donna Bassin showcased her photographs of ancient trees in a Japanese forest. This exhibition is part of her project, Portraits of a Precarious Earth, which explores the climate crisis and its connections to social justice. Each tree is treated as an individual portrait, with their damage accentuated through embroidery, drawing inspiration from the art of kintsugi. Bassin highlights the sacred nature of trees in Shinto beliefs while addressing the dangers facing California's sequoias. A clinical psychologist and photographer from New Jersey, originally from Brooklyn, Bassin has participated in various solo and collaborative exhibitions. She has received a 2024 Puffin Foundation Artist Grant and was named a Critical Mass Top 50 Photographer, with her work held in collections worldwide.
Key facts
- Donna Bassin's Ancient Trees photographs were displayed on large canvases among trees in a Japanese forest during the Karuizawa Foto Festival
- Ancient Trees is a subseries of Bassin's ongoing Portraits of a Precarious Earth project
- Bassin sews embroidery thread into the photographs, a gesture inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi
- The stitches make the trees' wounds more visible rather than concealing damage
- The project links the climate crisis to social justice and mental health concerns
- Bassin is a Brooklyn-born, New Jersey-based photographer, filmmaker, writer and clinical psychologist
- She trained in art therapy at Pratt Institute and later earned a PhD in clinical psychology
- Her solo shows include "The Afterlife of Dolls" at the Montclair Art Museum and "Portraits of the Precarious Earth" at the Newport Art Museum
- She received a 2024 Puffin Foundation Artist Grant and a 2021 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship
- She was named a Critical Mass Top 50 Photographer and Finalist from 2022 to 2024
Entities
Artists
- Donna Bassin
Institutions
- Karuizawa Foto Festival
- Pratt Institute
- Montclair Art Museum
- Newport Art Museum
- Morris Museum
- The Pictorial Foundation
- Marymount Manhattan College
- Hewitt Gallery
- Lenscratch
- New Jersey PBS
- State of the Arts
- Rhode Island PBS
- ART, Inc.
- The Pictorial List
- Tricycle
- Analog Forever
- Overlapse
- Puffin Foundation
- New Jersey State Council on the Arts
- Critical Mass
Locations
- Japan
- Karuizawa
- California
- Brooklyn
- New Jersey
- Portugal