The central tree image, and the title of my work are based on the Tree Of Substitutions, an image from the 1552 edition of Apud Hugonem `a Porta’s Infortiatum: Pandectarum Luris Civilis Tomus Secundus. This work is a translation of one of the most important legal books the Corpus Juris Civilis, (otherwise known as the “body of civil law”) which was written from 529-534 as a 50 volume set. This tree image shows the various branches of possible substitutions for alternate outcomes. i.e. the possibilities.

Similarly, the pointing clerics come from Ramon Llull’s Tree of Science, featured in his Arbol de la Cienciade el Iluminado Maestro Raymundo Lulio, from 1663.

The other images are deliberately chosen for their magical, pagan, and alchemical references. Living trees and their symbolic religious and juridical and counterparts- crucifixes and gibbets- were very much on my mind here. I decided to one-up Samuel Alito’s 17th century citation of Matthew Hale and turn the clock back even further to mine for legal arcana. Perhaps if we go back far enough we may find ourselves in a place where people with wombs have legal possession of the very self they inhabit? Doubtful. Until we are all truly made equal, none of us will be free.