A free public reception from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday, October 10, will mark the closing of Propagation, an installation by visual arts master’s student Patricia Coates in the SoVA Projects Gallery, LeBel Building.

In her installation, Coates says, “the interface of living and manufactured objects collides to convey a complex and conflicted human nature playing out in our relationship with the land.”

She has grown more than 2,000 seedling trees of the Carolinian forest—pin oak, chinquapin oak, Shumard oak, Kentucky coffeetree, honey locust, sycamore and cottonwood. She gathered the seeds and planted them in reclaimed, recycled and littered cups gleaned from urban streets, rural roads, fast food dumpsters and contributions from family, friends, and her own consumption.

This art intervention is ongoing; planting continues on restoration sites throughout the county, including the former Essex County landfill.