The tree and the tree in art, Lugano

From 30 November 2024 to 15 June 2025, the Budding Museum presents the exhibition ‘A as a tree. A as art', an interactive double journey conceived by the Espace des inventions in Lausanne and the Budding Museum in collaboration with Roland Besse.

‘A as a tree’ (Espace des Inventions, Lausanne)

In the ‘A as a tree’ trail, interactive stations engage the senses and the imagination and answer questions that young children ask about the life, characteristics and ‘magic powers’ of plants. How does a tree grow? How old is it? Why are trees important to us?

One part of the exhibition is dedicated to wood. There are many types of wood that differ in appearance and colour, but also in the use to which they can be put: by experimenting first-hand with their nose, with scales and other special instruments, young visitors will find the most fragrant tree, the heaviest, most elastic, most musical.

There is also a station where shopping is done as in a shop: a fun way to understand how many of the things we use every day exist thanks to trees. The products, in fact, placed in the trolley and passed at the till with a barcode, reveal whether or not they come from trees: unexpected answers will leave children - and not only them - open-mouthed!

‘A for art’ (Budding Museum in cooperation with Roland Besse)

The second route focuses on the tree as seen by artists. Since the past, in fact, the tree has played an important role in the history of art. The play stations are trees with reproductions of works in place of leaves: there is the tree of sounds, the tree of emotions and a tree library with materials to guess and touch.

The proposals are designed to bring the children into a relationship with the tree and art through the discovery of different techniques, styles and creative languages, but also through first-hand experimentation with the artist's gesture (it will be possible to pack small trees as Christo and Jeanne- Claude did and to build trees with the verses of a poem as Maria Lai did).

The main objective of the project is to make people discover the works through a multisensory approach with their eyes, hands and listening, leaving them free to express and share the emotions and sensations aroused by the images.