Tree.ceo
an art, design, and research studio
Offering a refreshing perspective on how we connect with ourselves, our communities, our environment, and our work—to nurture livable futures. The studio serves as a lab for exploring how nature can realign the stories we tell, through embodiment and facilitation to cultivate creativity through slowness and sensuous experiences. For collaborations or inquiries, feel free to reach out.
Studio lab
“Edges”, Ana Vásquez, 2024
Finding
the edges
Before asking “Why?”, storytelling for me begins by asking, “What am I practicing?”. This question anchors my studio’s work, guiding awareness and fostering growth at the edges of our stories—where intentions and connections intersect. Rooted in the playful energy of my art and music community and inspired by thinkers like Adrienne Maree Brown, this principle reveals how intentional practice opens space for authentic narratives and transformation.
Nature offers a powerful metaphor in ecotones, the transitional zones where ecosystems meet. These edges—like coral reefs—become vibrant sites of entanglement, where life thrives amidst tension. Coral reefs, for instance, balance support and competition among fish, corals, and microorganisms, fostering unparalleled diversity.
Similarly, mangrove trees embody adaptability, thriving in brackish waters by sensing salinity, tides, and soil changes. These ecosystems stabilize coasts and nurture life, illustrating how growth emerges at intersections.
In storytelling, these edges mirror moments of reflection and connection. By observing them, we explore the stories we wish to tell and who we wish to tell them to. Through a balance of reflection, defined values, and strategic design, we own our narratives, shaping them with clarity and authenticity. Creating new opportunities for emergence and innovation.
Edges, in both ecology and storytelling, are not limits but invitations—to create meaning and inspire growth.
2024 recap
“Show”, Ana Vásquez, 2023
Looking back at a few paintings from the summer solstice. Historical contexts with a bit of Sci-Fi kept things interesting this past year. I draw continuous inspiration from the intelligence of bifurcating systems that intertwine our inner and outer worlds. Trees, in their quiet humility, remind us how interdependence reflects and animates our better nature. Experiments with creaturely line work and ambient forms. I’ve gathered them into a small collection in the gallery.
Practice
“Untitled”, Tree & Oyster—Film, Microscopy footage, 2024. Brackish Music & Art Brooklyn x Heavy Florals @ Public Records. Collab with Jennae Santos
The foundation of my creative practice is drawing. With each drawing, I create an opportunity to recognize and understand not only the observed world around us but also the ways in which the rest of the senses can inform doodles and sketches. These drawings serve as transcriptions of experience, growing an internal catalog of observational awareness.
I’ve written more about how “Drawing is a Way to Understanding” on my Substack. Subscribe to learn more about my research practice, and latest experiments. Artworks are available upon request. Email for collaborations and art and design inquiries.
latest
“Heart Simulation”, Ana Vásquez — Video Synthesis, 2024. Sound collab with Robby Bowen
I've been drawn toward video synthesis and speculative ui to broaden my relationship with cultural histories, natural ecosystems, and communities of care. Learn more
Trigger Relief Cycle
Sensorial Installation Exploring Cultural Intimacy Through Food, Clay, Fire, and Black Soils
This project is a series of ongoing activations bringing together transdisciplinary artists, musicians, designers, and curators for creative exchange. We facilitated an art swap guided by my installation, Trigger Relief for Prosumers, which explores how storytelling has shaped “the evolution of fire into technology.”
The art direction serves as a sensuous meditation on resource abundance and extraction, sitting with how they shape cultural memory. The dinnerscape, composed of black produce, soil, and spices, invited guests into a dialogue about the aesthetics of how resources were coveted and displayed during the Dutch Gilded Age—a time when Caribbean abundance was extracted to fuel emerging Western economies of excess. Featured elements included tulips, cinnamon, cloves, and citrus.
My facilitation of the gathering guides conversations toward communal memory and ecological reverence through a series of art facilitations and the experiential design of the built environment. Guests are invited to engage their felt senses through embodiment rituals using food, fire, clay, and black soils harvested from local farms. In previous cycles, participants were also encouraged to bring artworks as exchange offerings, a process co-facilitated with Corinne Beardsley and Kelly Xi.
This work is rooted in the re-memory of the diaspora. Stoking memories of how ecological stewardship, art, food, and community are interdependent in pre-Columbian Indigenous practices. It emphasizes how abundance and interdependence can be cultivated in our present lives through felt sense, ritual, and a shared sense of belonging.
“Trigger Relief Cycle”, Ana Vásquez — Video Art Installation and facilitated gathering at Dinner.tn. A project space founded by Ana Vásquez & Kelly Xi, 2019.
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