Banyan

This collaboration between Sarasota residents poet Avni Vyas and painter Danielle Dygert was completed in October 2020. Avni teaches at New College, which is the college Danielle attended, but they first met as a result of this collaboration. 

Avni’s statement: Banyans hold great cultural value all over the world, but in Florida, for me, they resonate in particular alongside mangroves. Banyans and mangroves coalesce ecosystems, and that fascinates me. I wanted to give voice to the shift from self to collective thinking. I returned to our conversations about ecology, wilderness, and connection to develop a traditional sonnet. I wanted to use the form of a traditional sonnet, which I consider a restriction and a freedom. 

Danielle’s statement: This painting explores identity and growth. Wandering through a psychogeographic mythscape, the “I” becomes a “we” as the banyan’s roots stretch across and take hold. Working in collaboration with Avni, sparked in me the immediacy of the painted language as contemporary allegory. Beginning with a sketch of a childhood memory climbing old growth banyan trees imagining myself as a part of the interwoven aerial roots, this collaboration took hold and explored that history even further. After Avni introduced the word fulcrum, I wanted to explore the banyan itself as a fulcrum, holding in its roots the potential energy to pivot a trajectory; whether that be of the host tree or a child’s daydream.