Commiphora (Out of Africa) 3

Listening to Trees Across the Jordan River

The experience, “Biological NetWork” (2019), conceptualizes and aestheticizes the process of interactive "intraspecific" and "interspecific" communication. It enables us to visualize the process of communication between two trees from the same family. One of the trees of the installation, the myrrh tree (Mecca Myrrh) is native to the Jordan Valley, part of the Rift Valley. It is also related to the commiphora of Eastern Africa common in the Turkana Basin, one of the cradles of humankind explored by the scientists along the African side of the Rift.

Commiphora is a holy tree across the Rift Valley from the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon to Mozambique. Brought, according to the legend, by the Queen of Sheba from the shores of Lake Turkana to Judea and to the Arabian Peninsula, the tree is considered now as a native plant in the Near East. Myrrh produced from Commiphora Myrrha also holds a biblical significance as one of the Gifts of the Magi.

The "Biological NetWork" installation is meant to draw attention to the challenges which need to be overcome to save the myrrh tree from extinction. Olga Kisseleva hopes that the technological system she has invented will facilitate the creation of a communication network between commiphora and the afarsimon, a related species which has recently been revived in Israel.

Commiphora of the Turkana Basin can become part of this communication network. It is a prickly, low-branching deciduous, small tree. Unlike its Jordan Valley cousins, it is commonly found due to its ability to withstand hot, dry and rocky environments. Like in the Middle East, it serves the people that inhabit these arid lands - the Turkana people - in many ways. Its leaves and bark can be cooked as food and food supplements, roots are used as medicine, bark resin (gum arabic) - for fragrances and at times as an antiseptic, sap as pigment and dye. The Turkana people sculpt milk containers from commiphora, valuing its ability to preserve milk’s freshness. Goats and camels graze on the commiphora of the Turkana part of the Rift Valley, however, it protects itself from these assaults with long sharp thorns.