Arbor Aria is a multi-sensory installation created by Christa Ebert that honors and collaborates with old-growth forests.
Electronic signals from trees are recorded and translated into musical scores, accompanying an abstract film about the forests. The film’s visuals include footage from the woods where the recordings took place, as well as experimental collages and stop-motion art created with sustainably sourced natural materials. This installation shares the sights and sounds of the forest.
The project premiered on September 5, 2025, at Akron Soul Train. I have been recording these signals, sounds, and videos since 2023. The recordings presented come from Maine, California, Colorado, and the Cuyahoga Valley in Ohio. My hope is to continue this mission, exploring and recording more forests in the future.
By inviting audiences to experience the spiritual and transformative presence of old-growth forests, I aim to communicate their profound impact on the human spirit.
Old-growth trees are irreplaceable treasures and deserve our protection.
WALK WITH ME THROUGH THE TREES
Various locations, mostly Conifer, Colorado.
Trees are the lungs of the Earth. They create oxygen and are the source of all life on our planet. A single large tree can provide a day’s supply of oxygen for up to four people.
Old trees are especially effective at trapping carbon dioxide. In fact, the largest 1% of trees account for nearly 50% of all aboveground carbon stored in forests. As the U.S. Forest Service notes, “Forests can only do this vital work if they remain intact; when old trees are cut down, they release their stores of carbon back into the atmosphere, where it can trap heat and ramp up climate change once more. Conserving our oldest forests alone provides more net carbon storage than any other use of land in the U.S., and the biggest, oldest trees do more than their fair share of that work.”
ANTHEM OF THE TREES
Horton Woods, Saco, Maine
Tree: Red maple and hemlock rumored to be 400 years old
Horton Woods is where the seed of this project was planted. Over the course of two years, a series of intuitive thoughts guided me toward what would become Arbor Aria. While hiking there, I felt called to travel to Alaska, where I spent time developing this idea. When I returned to Horton Woods, a warm sense of certainty filled me—I was meant to record these trees. It was as if the forest itself asked me to share its songs.
Listen for the crow flying by at the beginning of the song.
Lyrics:
we root where we land
here we stand
400 years
started as a seed
among the weeds
and rhizosphere
through rain and sleet and snow
our roots reach down and grow
live against all odds
and anthropods
we’re miracle beings
grow towards the sun
through our leaves
we make air to breathe
SECLUDED SYCAMORE
Independence, Ohio
An American Sycamore, estimated to be 350–400 years old, stands as a lone relic of the early forest—the last one in Cuyahoga Valley. American sycamores can live up to 600 years.
“This is a Moses Cleaveland Tree. It was standing here as part of the original forest.” Each designated tree was at least 150 years old at the time Moses Cleaveland colonized the region in 1796.
This ancient sycamore has carried many nicknames over the centuries, drawn from both documented accounts and oral traditions. It is said to have served as a meeting site, shelter, and resting place for Native Americans. Because of this, it has been called the Peace Tree, Pilgrim’s Sycamore, Pilgerruh Tree, and Council Tree.
WALK WITH ME THROUGH THE TREES, PT. 2
We are all connected. A forest is a community. Trees are living, aware, and intelligent beings. They share nutrients and warn their neighbors of danger.
Emerging science shows that trees communicate with one another—even across species—through chemical signals and their roots. “Trees are linked to neighboring trees by an underground network of fungi that resembles the neural networks in the brain.”
METHUSELAH TREE
Redwood City, California — El Corte de Madera Open Space Preserve
A Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), estimated to be 1,860 years old.
This tree began as a seed in 217 AD, when the Ohlone Indians were the only human inhabitants of the region. Its diameter at the base (above the burls) is 14 feet, with a circumference of 44 feet, and it now stands 137 feet tall. A sign nearby notes it once reached 225 feet before the top broke off in 1954. Coastal redwoods are among the tallest and oldest living organisms on Earth.
This was the first giant tree I ever met, and it changed my life. I first visited in 2014 and returned a decade later, in 2024, to record it for this project.
MUIR WOODS
Mill Valley, California
Muir Woods is home to thousands of old-growth Coast Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), most between 500 and 800 years old. The oldest is estimated to be at least 1,200 years old.
The tallest tree in the grove reaches 258 feet (79 m). Each one begins from a seed no bigger than a tomato seed.
“When Muir Woods National Monument was established in 1908, over 80% of California’s old-growth Coast Redwoods were still alive. By the end of the 1950s, only 10% remained. Today, less than 5% of the original range of old-growth Coast Redwoods survives. Muir Woods provides a time capsule to the past—a fragmented glimpse of what once was.”
From a single sycamore to the vast redwood groves, these trees are living archives of resilience and memory. Arbor Aria invites us to listen to their voices and remember that old-growth forests are vital, irreplaceable, and in need of our protection.
FIND FORESTS NEAR YOU
The Old-Growth Forest Network is a great group that has a forest finder tool.
THANK YOU!
Thanks for watching. Learn about upcoming projects by subscribing to my newsletter. Thank you Akron Soul Train for your support and exhibiting the premiere of this project. If you’d like to help future Arbor Aria videos, Venmo @theunolady and paypal at unoladymusic@gmail.com.
