Utilizing the landscape as his medium, Fritz Horstman creates works that bring new awareness to our physical surroundings by intervening in nature in subtle ways. Horstman’s contemplative installations and interventions have taken the form of large geomentric cuts in the ground, undulating paper arches in a field, and a musically-inspired arrangement of charred tree trunks in a forest. With Guerrilla Trees, Horstman directs our attention to our relationship to New Haven. Fondly known as “The Elm City,” Horstman’s installation invites viewers to participate in the transformation of New Haven through guerrilla-style planting. A wooden  planter with elm saplings inside, sits in the middle of the room. On the wall in Gallery 2 Horstman has drawn an enlarged map of New Haven. Next to the map, Horstman has installed a column of push pins with green strings attached. Each viewer is invited to take a pin, which is also attached to a seed holder on the white cube, and place it somewhere on the map. Viewers are meant to plant the seeds (when the ground thaws) in a place of their choice; Horstman will then also plant one of the saplings from the planter in the same location. At the end of the exhibition, Horstman will collect information about each of the selected planting locations, and create a map that will eventually live on the Artspace website. Part performance, sculpture, and public intervention, Guerrilla Trees poses questions are individual assumptions about place, while emphasizing how our collective acts physically transform our community.

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