DEBORA HIRSCH. Vanishing Trees

Palazzo Citterio presents Vanishing Trees, a site specific digital installation by visual artist Debora Hirsch. The artist’s research has developed over many years through an investigation of the cultural genealogies of nature, bringing together botanical and historical studies with archival research and algorithmic processes. Hirsch translates this research into a visual language that addresses biodiversity loss as a crisis of collective memory.

The project is realized in collaboration with the Museo Nazionale dell’Arte Digitale and curated by Clelia Patella.

Conceived for the LED wall of Palazzo Citterio, the installation emerges from a research process developed in collaboration with the Orto Botanico di Brera at the University of Milan, with scientific support from the New York Botanical Garden. The work focuses on three tree species endangered in the wild: Ginkgo biloba, Pterocarya fraxinifolia, and Torreya taxifolia. Through observation and study, Hirsch translates these trees into symbolic presences, evoking an archetypal dimension in which the tree emerges as a silent figure of endurance.

The Orto Botanico di Brera is the site that houses the three trees at the center of the
work. Among them, the Caucasian wingnut, Pterocarya fraxinifolia, and the two Ginkgo biloba specimens have recently been designated Monumental Trees by the Italian state for their age, size, and historical significance. Direct observation of these trees in their gradual transformations over time enabled the artist to engage with aspects that cannot be accessed through archival material alone.
In the video, images form and dissolve in a continuous process that recalls natural
cycles, articulating the relationship between growth and disappearance. Vegetal forms
appear suspended between scientific reference and visual interpretation, situated within a temporal dimension that exceeds human scale. The trees speak in the first person. By shifting perspective from the human to the vegetal, the work proposes an alternative point of view grounded in attention and care.
The digital medium functions as an instrument of memory, translating biological and
symbolic legacies into a contemporary visual register.
Vanishing Trees is situated within the dialogue between cultural heritage and digital
practices that informs the program of Palazzo Citterio, developed in collaboration with
the Museo Nazionale dell’Arte Digitale. The work approaches conservation not only as an environmental concern but as a cultural responsibility, inviting reflection on what it means to recognize and preserve what is at risk of disappearance.
Alongside the digital installation, the exhibition includes Fragmenta, a physical work that reflects the ongoing exchange between painting and algorithmic generation in Hirsch’s practice.

The texts accompanying the video are written by Lucas Mertehikian, Director of the
Humanities Institute at the New York Botanical Garden, with whom Hirsch has
developed her research within the field of Plant Humanities.

Debora Hirsch is a multimedia Italo-Brazilian artist working across drawing and
painting, AI models, proprietary datasets, algorithmic processes, post-production, and
animation. Her practice centers on biodiversity preservation and endangered species,
exploring how technology can be used to reconsider notions of life, memory, and
disappearance. Seeking to restore the complexity of the real, her work intertwines
botanical, ecological, historical, and cultural studies through a methodology grounded in investigation, reinterpretation, and theoretical reflection. Her recent research unfolds within the field of Plant Humanities, examining our shifting relationship with plant life.
Her sources range from herbaria, scientific archives, rare books, illustrations, and digital
repositories to textual materials, while dialogues with scientists, humanists, and
botanists often inform the conceptual architecture of her oeuvre. 

Her works have been presented in public and private institutions internationally,
including Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary, New York (solo show); Museo Villa
Bernasconi, Cernobbio (solo show); Palazzo della Ragione, Verona; MuBE Museu
Brasileiro da Escultura e Ecologia, São Paulo (solo show); Museo Santa Maria della
Scala, Siena; MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow; Smack Mellon, New
York; A.I.R. Gallery, New York; MAXXI National Museum of the 21st Century
Arts, Rome; nGbK, Berlin; Fondazione A. Olivetti, Rome (solo show); Il Chiostro Arte &
Archivi (solo show); Galleria d’Arte Moderna Palazzo Forti, Verona; and
MAGA Museum, Gallarate.