Background/History

The Tree Museum acknowledges the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original owners and custodians of the land on which we stand and create.

The Tree Museum was established in 1997 and is a site set on the pre Cambrian shield amidst the cottage county-side of Muskoka. It is located on Ryde Lake near the town of Gravenhurst, Ontario. The site is undeveloped and includes both waterfront and forest. For the participating artists, this opportunity represents a rare occasion to realize major outdoor artworks in an uncultivated environment.

1998-2019, artists, both National and International, have created unique projects relating to the site of the Tree Museum. These works engage the complex reality of the relationship between man and nature; adoration, reliance, and exploitation. Collectively, the projects explore concepts of identity, memory and territory in respect to nature and natural processes, while underscoring the imbalance that characterizes our current relationship to the environment.

Some of the works are permanent and others are of a transitory nature, with the elements and nature determining their life span, ONLY the following artists have work on the site: Badanna Zack, E.J. Lightman, Deeter Hastenteufel, Anne O’Callaghan, Ryszard Litwiniuk, John Dickson, Jaffa Lam, Jocelyne Belcourt Salem, Noel Harding, Francis LeBouthillier, J. Lynn Campbell, Orest Tataryn, Nancy Paterson, Ed Pien, Warren Quigley. Peter von Tiesenhausen, Tim Whiten.

The site is open June to October.
There are QR codes on all the works for more information
Entrance to the site is free of charge.

Founder and sponsor of the Tree Museum:
EJ Lightman.
Curators: EJ Lightman and Anne O'Callaghan
Please note that we do not accept unsolicited proposals
Detailed exhibition history