Special Installation | Forest Feels BLOOMS
by Amanda N. Simons
Forest Feels was originally created as a response to the September 2024–January 2025 exhibition Reforestation of the Imagination by Ginny Ruffner, an interactive show that featured glass tree stumps, watercolors, and augmented reality works. Thirteen days after the exhibition opened to the public, Asheville suffered an unprecedented weather event that changed the landscape of the city and surrounding areas.
Forest Feels (2024) invited viewers to reimagine the forest and celebrate its life through creative contribution, and post-Helene, it became that and so much more. The tree stumps suddenly took on a different, weighted, and grim meaning. Visitors to Forest Feels (2024) responded accordingly—with grief, and with hope. Words of encouragement, love notes to the forest, rainbows, hearts, and critters made of felt flooded the ArtPLAYce. The artist, the Museum staff, and the public documented these creations. Thank you for taking the time to express yourselves!
Forest Feels BLOOMS (2025) is the second iteration of this interactive exhibit. Visitors, please make this blooming forest your own. Contribute some flowers and signs of the changing season. Let’s celebrate growth and progress. The warm months are arriving in Asheville, and the city will look much different. So, let’s celebrate that difference together.
About the Artist:
Amanda N. Simons (b. 1984, Flint Michigan, USA) is a visual artist, writer, educator, and safety advocate whose interdisciplinary art practice currently explores the intersections of queer identity, and experience-based learning. This visual art practice takes the form of many things—painting, print, small scale sculpture, performance, and video—and often features an interactive component or direct reference to the body—how we are taught to act or live or move, and what happens when we push against that?
Amanda holds dual degrees in English (BA) and painting (BFA) from the University of Michigan Flint, as well as dual advanced degrees in interdisciplinary studio art (MFA) and visual and critical studies (MA) from California College of the Arts, and works as the Program Coordinator of the SkillSet Program at the UNCA STEAM Studio.
