Tiffany Shlain

DENDROFEMONOLOGY: A Feminist History Tree Ring

Reclaimed deodar cedar wood sculpture

60" x 55" x 3"

2022

Dendrofemonology tells a 50,000 year history of humanity through a feminist lens. See the whole timeline text at the bottom of the page.

“I have always been fascinated by the tree ring timelines at the entrance of Muir Woods or any National Park. However, I also felt like those timelines tell a colonialist and patriarchal story. Dendrofemonology: A Feminist History Tree Ring imagines what alternate histories could be told." ~ Tiffany Shlain

Watch our new eight-minute film which explores the creative process and the ideas behind the sculpture and moveable monument, Dendrofemonology: A Feminist History Tree Ring.

Dendrofemonology: A Feminist History Tree Ring sculpture debuted as part of Tiffany Shlain's Human Nature exhibition in The San Francisco Ferry Building's Shack15 in November, 2022. A print of the artwork was then in the de Young Open at the de Young Fine Art Museum in San Francisco Sept 2023. The sculpture then was installed on the National Mall in Washington DC Nov 1-4, 2023, then traveled to Madison Square Park, in NYC for A Mobilization of Women's Rights and the Planet September 21st, 2024. A print edition was part of the the "Artists for Kamala" benefit auction, an online fundraiser to support Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign, featured works by numerous artists, including Jeff Koons, Amy Sherald, Simone Leigh, Jenny Holzer, and many others, with proceeds going to the Harris Victory Fund. Dendrofemonology was part of Shlain's solo exhibition You Are Here at Nancy Hoffman Gallery in Chelsea Sept 5, to Oct 19th, 2024. It will be travel to di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art's new location in San Francisco's Minnesota Street Project Arts Campus Jan 20, 2026. Highlights below.

SEE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE NATIONAL MALL DC MOBILIZATION

SEE HIGHLIGHTS FROM NYC MOBILIZATION

A large-scale framed photograph of Dendrofemonology was featured at the de Young Museum de Young Open Exhibition Sept 2023 to Jan 2024.

Artists For Kamala

A large-scale framed photograph of Dendrofemonology was auctioned off for the Artists for Harris Art Sale and one of the first pieces to be acquired. Other artists who are a part of this benefit auction and sale include Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Judy Chicago, Simone Leigh, Amy Sherald, Deb Kass, Richard Serra, Jenny Holzer, Ed Ruscha, and more.

PRESS

"Tiffany Shlain’s Feminist Art Answers the ‘Urgent’ Call to Fight for Democracy and Women’s Place in History" ~

Ms Magazine

Temporary monument brings a feminist timeline of history to Washington, DC’s National Mall ~

The Art Newspaper

At the National Mall, Artist Tiffany Shlain Is Rewriting Women into U.S. History ~ Ms Magazine

Feminist Tree Ring is a Moveable Monument Which Has Become a Visual Locus for Galvanizing Collective Action in Feminist Interventions ~ White Hot Magazine

Feminist Tree Ring Stands Tall on the National Mall ~ Print Magazine

Dendrofemonology A Feminist History Tree Ring on the National Mall ~ Surface Magazine

"At such a pressing time in American politics, the following few artists and organizations are stepping up to guide this delivery of decisive power." ~ Art, Currently

All press articles can be read here.

Dendro Timeline

Dendrofemonology timeline text burned into the wood with pyrography:

50,000 BCE Goddesses are worshiped.
10,000-3000 BCE Women are healers, shamans, and warriors. A number of societies acknowledge multiple genders.
3100 BCE Literacy develops, and seeds of patriarchy spread.
2400 BCE Mesopotamian law declares: “If a woman speaks to a man out of turn, her teeth will be smashed in by a burnt brick.”
200 BCE Goddess worship is forbidden in Judaism, and later, in Islam and Christianity.
690 Wu Zetian becomes the first—and only—female ruler of China.
1100 Matrilineal and matriarchal Hopi tribe establishes the community of Oraibi in present-day Arizona.
1450 to 1918 50,000 women tortured and executed as witches across Europe and America.
1576-1610 Queen Amina rules over Zazzau (present-day Nigeria).
1690s Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz becomes the first published feminist in the Americas.
1776-1860s Abortion up to four months of pregnancy is legal in the United States.
1880s Inspired by indigenous and abolitionist leaders and British suffragists, first-wave feminism gains momentum in the United States.
1920 19th Amendment grants US women the right to vote, although most women of color are disenfranchised until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
1920 The Soviet Union legalizes abortion.
1960 FDA approves birth control pill in the United States
1960 Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) becomes the first woman to be elected to lead a democratic country.
1962 Dolores Huerta co-founds US National Farm Workers' Association.
1960s Second-wave feminism begins with leaders including Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Flo Kennedy, and Shirley Chisholm.
1963 First woman in space Valentina Tereshkova flies a solo mission and orbits Earth 48 times.
1972 Title IX prohibits gender-based discrimination in US federally-funded educational programs and activities.
1972 The US Senate approves addition of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. (The states have not yet ratified it.)
1973 Roe vs. Wade legalizes abortion in all US states and territories.
1974-1980 The Combahee River Women’s Collective calls out the interconnectedness of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and demands change in mainstream feminism and civil rights movement.
1975 Icelandic Women’s Strike held to protest inequality in the workplace and the home. 90% of women participate, and 15 years later Iceland elects a woman president.
1989 Kimberlé Crenshaw defines the concept of intersectionality and ushers in third-wave feminism.
1993 Women allowed to wear pants on the floor of the US Senate.
2006 Tarana Burke begins #MeToo movement.
2016 Hillary Rodham Clinton receives the majority of votes in the US presidential election.
2017 An estimated 5 million people attend Women’s Marches globally. #MeToo goes viral.
2017 Oregon becomes first state to include non-binary gender category on IDs.
2020-2022 US elects first female Vice President Kamala Harris and first trans State Senator, Sarah McBride; Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes first Black woman confirmed to Supreme Court.
2022
- Roe v. Wade is overturned, eviscerating federal protection of reproductive rights in the U.S.
- Globally, 65 countries have legalized abortions, four in the last year.
- Globally, 86 women have been elected president or prime minister to date…
Today:

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DENDROFEMONOLOGY: A Feminist History Tree Ring