Collaborator, eco-activist, healer, and luminous personality all describe Lili(ana), Bernheim’s 2024 Environmental Artist in Residence. Lili(ana) hails from South Florida and works on collaborative eco-art projects around the world. Lili(ana)’s residency began before she arrived, in the community call for bulk mail for the next chapter of her project, Fore(st)sight. Our community responded wonderfully, dropping off pounds of unsolicited bulk mail to the kiosk and Visitor Center. She shreds all that mail with her trusty traveling paper shredder before turning it into the material she uses to make molds of trees from Bernheim’s Arboretum.

Lili(ana) invites all visitors, school groups, and Bernheim staff to assist her in the process of making her tree sculptures. She engages in conversation with her guest assistants about the effects bulk mail has on forests and living more sustainably. She invites the guest assistant to treat each tree they work with as a sentient being. The process of making the shredded paper molds, and fitting them on the roots and trunk, feeling the texture and contours of the tree’s skin, impress participants with the physical reality that bulk mail comes from trees and diminishes them as well. After the tree molds dry, she then removes them from the trees and finishes them in the studio.

Lili(ana) reflects on her time at Bernheim, “At Bernheim Forest, Creation takes you for a hike, to wander in wonder while Mother Nature whispers in your heart. So many levels of connection that can be experienced when immersing in these sacred grounds. If only…
I open my heart in complete trust hoping for my whole being to be a conducive channel for this immeasurable beauty to manifest through my art. I am grateful to be here!”

Lili(ana) plans to show the finished pieces in an installation at Bernheim before her residency concludes on November 16. The community can participate in making one of her Fore(st)sight trees on Saturday, November 2, during ColorFest.
Lili(ana) / Environmental Artist in Residence
Lili(ana) is a multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in South Florida. Her project: “Fore(st)sight” is a community-engaged happenings + installation that ponders on the future of forests, through work created with repurposed junk mail. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally.
For over 40 years, Bernheim’s Artist in Residence program has attracted artists from around the world who seek to use Bernheim as their inspiration. This internationally renowned program annually awards artists the opportunity to live and create site-specific work inspired by their immersive experience in nature.