Margaret Hart has spent nearly three decades teaching in the Art Department at UMass Boston, shaping the way students think about art and their place in the world. Her upcoming project, “and the world will live as one,” continues that mission outside the classroom, using art, science and collaboration to listen closely to the stories a single tree can tell.

The project started with a simple question: how can one tree tell a story about the world around it? Hart and her collaborators in the international Endpoint Collective chose a single tree on Kathleen Stone Island in Boston Harbor as their focus. The work is supported by a Dean’s Research Grant from the College of Liberal Arts, which has allowed Hart and her collaborators to bring together scientific and artistic voices.

Working with Montreal-based artist Deborah Carruthers, Hart hopes to illuminate how trees hold knowledge of the past, while speaking to the present.

Carruthers is transforming tree core samples and climate diaries into graphic scores: abstract notations that can be interpreted and performed by musicians. Hart is exploring the idea of live-streaming video of the tree, inspired by the “slow TV” tradition of long-form observation, and creating 2D artworks in the form of collage and drawings. Both approaches push viewers to slow down and spend time noticing what usually goes unseen.

“The point is to start with one voice,” Hart said. “Just as you would begin studying people by listening to one individual, we’re listening to this tree.”

This work also extends into the classroom and community. Last summer, Hart partnered with Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a nonprofit summer program for Boston City High School students. They researched in the UMass Boston archives and created climate diaries. This fall, she plans to expand the work with Outward Bound students, who will create drawings and reflections that capture their personal responses to the site and respond to readings like Suzanne Simard’s “Finding the Mother Tree.”

“When students read about how trees communicate and support one another, it changes how they see the natural world,” Hart said. “That shift in perspective is where art really matters.”

Though this upcoming work is a major step forward, it builds on Hart’s long history of crossing disciplinary boundaries. In 2024, she co-organized a climate change conference at UMass Boston with environmental scientist and professor Robert Chen, which brought together artists, scientists, government representatives, and journalists. The event highlighted the need for collaboration across fields, something Hart has long advocated for in her teaching.

“People assume artists just illustrate what scientists are doing,” she said. “But when disciplines intersect, they learn new ways of looking at the world. That’s when the really exciting conversations happen.”

Hart’s commitment to teaching reflects that same belief. Since joining UMass Boston in 1997, she has encouraged students to find what resonates with them. “I never wanted students to just make work that looked like mine,” she said. “But I do want them to see how what you care about in the world becomes the work you make.”

Her own journey into art began in Dubuque, Iowa, when she was a teenager. On a high school trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, she encountered Vincent Van Gogh’s portrait of postman Joseph Roulin. “I remember thinking, I just have to do art,” she said. From ceramics and printmaking to photography, she explored many mediums before committing to her true passion of photography, a practice she continues today.

For Hart, “and the world will live as one” is a way of returning to long-form research projects that combine teaching, collaboration, and personal practice. She envisions the project unfolding over several years, culminating in an exhibition that integrates visual art, archival material, and a live performance of Carruther’s graphic score.

In addition to “and the world will live as one,” Hart is preparing for an upcoming exhibition of new collage works. She will debut the series at the Kingston Gallery in Boston and later at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts, in early 2026, expanding her practice into new visual territory while continuing to explore themes of connection and memory.

“As an artist, I have to start thinking about what my impact is,” she said. “When we talk about the climate crisis, I think many people are naturally short-sighted. It’s hard to think about beyond our generation, because that’s our own mortality. So this work isn’t meant to necessarily benefit us, but future generations.”

Hart continues to carry this idea forward, hoping to make a serious statement with this project. By listening to one tree on a Boston Harbor island, she and her collaborators hope to open new ways of seeing the environment, and to spark conversations about how humans might listen more closely to both the natural world and to one another.

More information regarding Hart’s past and upcoming projects is available on her website.