Colby College sits on 714 acres, but most of the campus is devoid of buildings, roads, light fixtures, or manicured lawns. Most of the campus (about 472 acres of it) is forest.
When Rafi Aronson `27, Rachel Hernandez `27, and Mollie Block `27 arrived at the College, they quickly availed themselves of that forest. It consists of (in the common parlance) the Upper and Lower Arboretum, usually shortened to “the Arb,” which are accessible through a variety of trails that collectively total about 8.5 miles. The three students grew to love the beautiful woodland spaces, and they also began to research the Arb, turning up fascinating results. Aronson described this research as “a turning point.”
“Last May, we kind of uncovered a little bit of the history behind the Arboretum,” he said. “We went to Special Collections and looked at all the resources that they had on file about the Colby woodlands and realized there wasn’t much in the 21st century, and in particular, there wasn’t much communication about the construction of West Lot.”
Aronson was referencing the College’s decision to build a new 330-space parking lot behind the Alfond Apartments in 2023. With little to no forewarning, the College deforested a sizable portion of the Upper Arboretum, including areas where professors and students were conducting research, to build the new lot. Mahika Gupta `23 covered this story for The Echo in April of 2023, and Aronson said her article motivated the three students to take action.
The action that Aronson, Hernandez, and Block took was putting together the Arb Experience. Now on display at Greene Block + Studios, the Arb Experience is a multimodal art installation featuring music composed by Aronson, photography by Hernandez, and documentary footage by Block. It’s also one of the most intriguing, refreshing, and beautiful exhibitions this Echo reporter has seen at the College.
“[The Arb] is this amazing resource, it’s the majority of our campus, and nobody talks about it, ever,” said Block. “Like, we talk about athletics, we talk about academics, we talk about all this other stuff that we have, but nobody ever brings up the Arboretum. And I think we all felt that it was kind of on par with all the other resources at the College, and it deserves attention and love.”
It’s clear from the installation and from all its associated artwork that the three students and friends have given the Arb attention and love in large quantities.
Aronson put together an album that’s available on streaming platforms and Bandcamp under the artist name “thearchivistrafi.” He’s a phenomenal musician and a skillful producer, and the album (called the unheard half) is a strange and invigorating piece of work. It’s made using recorded samples from the Arb (rivers, footsteps, wind blowing through trees, and more), as well as sensors that record electric signals from plants and convert them into files for digital music production. Some of Aronson’s music plays at Greene Block + Studios while visitors peruse Hernandez’s photography and Block’s filmmaking. It’s the perfect accompaniment. Aronson described the songs as “little sonic portraits,” since each of the nine songs on his album feature samples from nine locations within the Arb.
Hernandez has captured, in numerous black-and-white photographs and in a forthcoming photobook called Woods on the Hill, the beauty of the College’s natural resources. “I formulated the book as a walk through the Arb,” Hernandez explained. “So I arranged the photos starting from the farthest point… in the woods, and then it goes all the way through the forest, and then near Runnals, too.” There are shots of mushrooms, huge stands of trees, cut logs, waterways, and more. One of the pictures hanging at Greene Block + Studios features a small and hard-to-see chipmunk, and there’s a note beside it that instructs viewers to find the little critter. Unfortunately, this Echo reporter couldn’t find the chipmunk until Hernandez pointed it out.
Block filmed a 15-minute documentary called On Tree Time that she screened on April 24 in Ostrove Auditorium. Like Hernandez, Block frames her shots meticulously, and the results are outstanding: the film is a celebration of the College’s natural beauty. But it’s great informational work, too. Block interviewed people from President David Greene to professors to her fellow students, and the research that she conducted is evident throughout the film. She, like Aronson and Hernandez, cares about the Arb and wants to do it justice in her filmmaking. And in her own words, she wants to “make art with a purpose.”
That’s the second component of the Arb Experience. It’s not just a collection of student artwork; it’s also a purpose-driven project. Aronson and Block told me that of the 472 acres of forest at the College, only about 128 are actually protected, and of those acres, only 97 are accessible by trail. Of course, the College needs room to develop and expand—but there’s also a great deal of value in having preserved forests on campus, which the Arb Experience makes clear. That’s the purpose toward which these students’ art is aimed: preserving and caretaking the College’s Arboretum.
“The purpose of this art is, one, I think a blanket level of raising appreciation and awareness and celebrating our natural resource,” Block said. “But then also we have petitions at the end of our installation, which people can sign…. One of them is to create the position of an Arboretum Manager. So it would be a full-time, master’s-level position, and they would do the work that the Woodlands Committee is doing right now.”
The members of the Woodlands Committee, however, all have other responsibilities, and they maintain the Arb on top of their roles as employees of the College. So, as Block explained to me, the Arboretum Manager position would make it possible for one dedicated person to tend to the upkeep, maintenance, and improvement of the College’s multi-hundred-acre natural resource.
“The other call to action is to expand protections,” Block continued. Because of how little of the Arb is protected by College policy, there is a significant amount of forested area (much of it rich with biodiversity, research potential, and recreation opportunities) that could become developed. So to preserve the Arb, the students behind the Arb Experience are trying to get more of it officially protected.
The Arb Experience will be taken down on May 11. Until then, it’s open every day, and it’s absolutely worth visiting. I haven’t even mentioned the fascinating lightbox research exhibit that tells the story of how the Arb came to exist. It’s an incredibly compelling installation. It’s a testament to Aronson, Hernandez, and Block’s artistry, and it’s also a work of true, tangible, and contagious passion for the forests of Colby College. I could not recommend the Arb Experience more highly.
-Elias Kemp `27
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