Through art, dialogue and public engagement, Shlain’s Dendrofemonology urges voters to remember—and build upon—the struggles of women throughout history.
For three years running, artist and activist Tiffany Shlain has created calls to action around her feminist history tree ring sculpture in advance of U.S. elections where women’s voting rights, reproductive rights and long held democratic principles face historic setbacks. The milestones and tribulations of women’s history seared onto its surface are particularly resonant now, as many records of women’s presence and accomplishments are disappearing from public view.
The tree ring, also known as Dendrofemonology, is crafted from the noble yet humble relic of a 250-year-old segment of found wood just five feet in diameter. With Shlain’s handiwork, it ambitiously bears witness to 50,000 years of history in 32 watershed moments, beginning when women were worshipped as goddesses across cultures, through the torture and execution of 50,000 women said to be witches across Europe and America over 500 years, to advancements like women winning the right to vote in the United States just over a century ago.
Shlain aims to “bring the tree ring to life” by convening connective community conversations around its sweeping timeline of women and power in society, invoking the need for action. Rather than relying on the art to speak for itself, Shlain orchestrates events, some reminiscent of “happenings,” where the work can’t help but encounter the public, and the public is called into dialogue and participation.
On Oct. 8, the tree ring served as a focal point for “an evening of feminist art, action and community” at St. Louis’ 21c Museum Hotel where it is currently part of the Future Is Female exhibition, curated by Alice Gray Stites, featuring nearly 100 works illuminating the persisting “struggle for equality and inclusion” by artists exploring themes both personal and political.
The museum catalogue pointedly asks what role art might play in “shaping the next notation inscribed on Shlain’s tree ring.” The answer unfolded in part in the 21c gallery space that night, where nearly 200 people came together for a reception and panel discussion featuring Shlain with local community leaders working to protect and advance equality and women’s rights in Missouri and beyond.
Before the panel began, attendees introduced themselves to each other as they took in the exhibit and tasted hors d’oeuvres, sharing information about their work and overlapping community interests and efforts. In one such conversation, active local Suzanne Moak explained to others about the initiative petition process in Missouri, which “can be used to amend the constitution or change state law” and is being challenged by the majority-Republican legislature there after a majority of Missourians used the process to vote in favor of legalizing abortion and increasing the minimum wage and paid sick leave.
Israel Collier, vice president of Metropolitan Congregations United in St. Louis, is a native of the city with local and global social justice experience. The mission of the organization if to strengthen relationships with congregations and neighborhoods to build collective power and increase leadership capacity among members.
Shlain kicked off discussion by asking panelists their perspectives on where we are in history in this moment. Miranda Rectenwald, curator of local and LGBTQ history at Washington University, expressed the hope that history can offer us lessons from which we can learn, rather than find despair. WashU business professor Hillary Anger Elfenbein’s more ominous take likened recent events to conditions in 1930s Germany but stressed the purposefulness and imperative of individual and collective action in addressing them. We should each actively ask ourselves what resources we have to offer and lean into every source of privilege we can bring to bear, she said, imagining how we can collaborate with likeminded individuals and organizations.
“Find people that you love and care about that you want to do this work with,” said panelist Brittany Hughes, community organizer with ACLU Missouri. She spoke of the importance of “finding joy and holding onto it” in the face of the often arduous aspects of social justice work, for which she was awarded the Missourian’s 2021 Progress in Social Justice award. From the conversations percolating throughout the gallery as the crowd reluctantly dispersed after a group photo, it seemed clear that that goal was advanced by the evening’s proceedings, which also included moving readings by Poet Laureate of St. Louis, Pacia Elaine Anderson.
Anderson, in assuming the role of poet laureate, had expressed that she intended to “uplift the city’s culture around poetry and activism,” saying, “you can’t just do art for art’s sake. … It’s more… giving a voice to the voiceless … speaking truth to power. It’s holding self and others accountable …”
Shlain expresses similar aspirations for her art, including her films. The recently updated short film, We Are Here, chronicles the tree ring’s history to date. Shlain asks that we pay attention to when power gets taken away and consider what “we need to make happen for the future we want.”
For four days leading up to election day 2023, Dendrofemonology was on display at the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and iconic Reflecting Pool, including an Abortion Rights Art Parade and a half-day convening of over 50 ERA Coalition partners at Vital Voices Headquarters in downtown D.C. Its residency there began and ended with music, opening on the first day with vocalist Martha Redbone performing Mavis Staple’s Eyes on the Prize–Hold On and ending with a flash mob dancing to John Lennon’s Imagine and Deee-Lite’s Groove is in the Heart, inviting the public to join in the dance and be curious about the serious purpose of the festivities.
Dendrofemonology’s daylong residence in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park in 2024 coincided with the start of climate week and building anticipation of a historic election, which many saw as critical to stem the threatened rollback of women’s rights from a second Trump administration and hoped would herald instead the election of the first woman president of the United States.
The daylong, public activation and rally in New York addressed the dual “age of urgency” threatening both the health and wellbeing of women and, symbolically, Mother Earth herself (a theme also addressed in the current St. Louis exhibition by Shlain and filmmaker Melanie Bonajo).
As in D.C., the New York proceedings included speakers, performances and a processional. The latter, “walk for Women’s Rights and the Planet,” featured a noticeable stream of suffragist-inspired participants wearing white as they wound their way along the High Line to the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in Chelsea for a viewing and artist’s talk on Shlain’s solo exhibition “You Are Here.”
Cast members of Suffs, the Broadway musical ode to the women’s suffrage movement, kicked off the walk in Madison Square Park by belting out the play’s signature song, The March (We Demand Equality), as the crowd sang along.
Shlain says “sometimes it takes art to move consciousness in society” and she aims to make the connection explicit. She ends the film We Are Here with shout outs to women presidents and prime ministers from around the world since 1960, and offers admonitions to the U.S. electorate to:
- Get involved locally.
- Support the ERA.
- Protect reproductive rights.
- Continue to support and fund women leaders.
- Engage the 35.9 percent who didn’t vote in the last presidential election (which surpassed the number of those who voted for either Harris or Trump at 30.6 percent and 31.6 percent respectively).
At this political moment, Shlain says, “We need to keep all of the courageous women of the past right here, right next to us, all of the time.” Stops along the tree ring’s national tour bring its “feminist intervention” to seats of power, and empower people where they are, offering a place for coming together with purpose and joy for, as musician and activist Joan Baez once said, “action is the antidote to despair.”
Plans are underway for tree ring centered activation events in 2026, beginning in San Francisco with the eve of International Women’s Day on March 7, when there will be a gathering for Dendrofemonology as part of Shlain’s exhibition, “Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time & Technology” at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art’s new San Francisco location. There will also be an event in advance of the midterm elections in a location to be announced. These moveable monument gatherings are supported by Nancy O’Reilly of Women Connect4Good and Piraye Yurttas Beim, Ph.D., of Eve’s Ark.
The Dendrofemonology sculpture is now in St. Louis; it will be at the di Rosa in San Francisco in 2026. Follow the moveable monument’s journey and RSVP to upcoming events by signing up for Shlain’s newsletter.
