'The Giving Tree' Opening Reception
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Space 4 Art Presents THE GIVING TREE Curated by Jill Dawsey
Space 4 Art is pleased to present "The Giving Tree," a group exhibition curated by Jill Dawsey, senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and featuring the work of artists from the greater San Diego-Tijuana region. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, August 29, 2026, from 5 to 8 p.m., and remains on view through September 26, 2026, at Art Produce Gallery. The opening will include readings by poet Fiona Martinez and artist-writer Ruth Wallen at 5:30 p.m.
"The Giving Tree" gathers 14 artists who celebrate the intelligence and generosity of trees, while exploring themes of reciprocity, regeneration, and environmental vulnerability. Borrowing its title from Shel Silverstein’s enduring 1964 children’s book, the exhibition approaches the story as an anti-tribute, reconsidering its familiar narrative of selfless giving through the lens of humanity’s complicated relationship with the natural world.
“When we asked Jill to be part of this year’s gallery residency at Art Produce, we encouraged her to give free reign to her imagination,” said S4A executive director Jennifer de Poyen. “The result is a deeply personal and conceptually rich show from one of our most exciting curators. We can’t wait to share it with the community.”
In Silverstein’s story, a tree–whose pronoun is she–gives and gives to a boy, ultimately becoming a stump as he takes all she has to offer. Long interpreted as a parable of maternal selflessness and charity, the story can also be read as a fable about human consumption and our sense of entitlement to the natural world. Dawsey’s exhibition asks what happens when we move beyond this familiar model of extraction and instead consider trees as active participants in complex, interconnected communities.
Recent ecological research suggests that trees communicate, share resources, and form cooperative relationships across species. Forests are not simply collections of individual organisms competing for sunlight, water, and nutrients, but interdependent networks shaped by reciprocity and mutual support. Seen in this light, the title The Giving Tree takes on a new resonance.
Bringing together drawing, painting, photography, poetry, and sculpture, "The Giving Tree" imagines trees not as scenery or passive subjects, but as participants in the world. Several works explore forests as spaces of continuous renewal, while others emphasize the precarity of trees and the consequences of human consumption.
“Together, the works create a kind of forest within the gallery— one that reflects the interconnected lives of trees alongside the collective intelligence of artists,” says Dawsey. “'The Giving Tree' invites all of us to reconsider what it means to live within an ecosystem, and to imagine a relationship with the natural world grounded not in ownership and extraction, but in mutuality and care.”
The exhibition features Space 4 Art resident artists Andrew Alcasid and Bridget Rountree, and former S4A resident artists SIEN Collective (Siobhan Arnold, 1970-2023, & Meaghan Shein) and Lorena Mostajo, alongside Jennifer Anne Bennett, Andrea Chung, scott b. davis, Thomas DeMello, Jeanne Dunn, Fiona Martinez, Amy Pachowicz, Griselda Rosas, Melanie Taylor, and Ruth Wallen.
Exhibition Details
Title: "The Giving Tree"
Curated by: Jill Dawsey
Presented by: Space 4 Art
Venue: Art Produce Gallery, 3139 University Ave., San Diego
Opening Reception: August 29 | 5-8 p.m.; readings at 5:30 p.m.
Closing Reception and Artist Talk: September 26 | 12-3 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: August 29 – September 26
Gallery Hours: Fridays 1-7 p.m.; Saturdays 12-6 p.m.; and by appointment
All events are free and open to the public. For more information, please visit Space 4 Art's website (www.sdspace4art.org) or follow @sdspace4art on social media.
About the Curator
Jill Dawsey, Ph.D., is Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and an adjunct instructor in the Department of Visual Arts, UC San Diego. Her work engages feminism, disability justice, and art histories of the San Diego-Tijuana region.
About Space 4 Art
Space 4 Art is a San Diego-based nonprofit arts organization dedicated to supporting artists and strengthening the region’s cultural ecosystem by providing access to affordable creative spaces, artist opportunities, exhibitions, public programming, and community engagement.
"The Giving Tree" is produced by Space 4 Art as part of an ambitious, year-long residency at Art Produce funded by an Arts Ecosystem grant from the Prebys Foundation, supporting exhibitions and opportunities that connect artists, audiences, and communities across the San Diego region.
Art Produce Gallery
Purchased and rehabbed in 1999, Art Produce was once a boarded up building that had housed the North Park Produce market. Art Produce is now a non-profit community cultural center that connects artists, cultural organizations, schools, urban farmers and businesses. We support cultural production, mentor community engagement by artists and provide affordable cultural activities in a community setting. Our mission is to build community and foster civic engagement through arts, education and public culture. Art Gallery: The Gallery is entirely visible from the sidewalk and was designed to accommodate sculptural installations, cross-disciplinary works, digital media and performance events. The space allows for unconventional presentation opportunities for artists and unexpected art encounters for viewers. Intended to enliven the experience of the pedestrian it is an experiment in public art that is accessible to everyone in the community - an attempt to render visibility and transparency into the art process itself. Garden: The Garden is a public art, performance space and cultural space focused on aesthetic, educational and sustainable/green practices. It was transformed from an asphalt parking lot into an edible garden and orchard and now hosts film screenings, performances, art installations and community events. It incorporates an outdoor classroom and workspace into an urban garden that includes a rainwater catchment system and a PV solar energy system. Stone Paper Scissors Studio: Stone Paper Scissors, owned by Lynn Susholtz, has been creating art projects for public agencies, schools, business associations and communities since 1994. Previous projects have included the planning of public spaces, developing public arts initiatives for neighborhoods, collaborating with design teams, integrating art into capital projects and fabricating sculptural works.
