An amazing exhibit of primary growth tree roots from forests in Africa is on tour in Europe.
Angela Palmer's Ghost Forest has contributed to the debate on deforestation and climate change. One observor said, "Art communicates on a level that can go beyond data and scientific findings, and Ghost Forest will offer a deep emotional resonance for all that see it."
From the website an overview is provided,
"The work is intended to highlight the alarming depletion of the world's natural resources, and in particular the continued rate of deforestation. Today, a tropical forest the size of a football pitch is destroyed every four seconds, impacting on climate, biodiversity and the livelihoods of indigenous people. The trees in Ghost Forest - most of which fell naturally in storms - are intended to represent rainforest trees worldwide; the absence of their trunks is presented as a metaphor for the removal of the world's lungs caused through the loss of our forests.
The tree stumps were exhibited as a “ghost forest” in Trafalgar Square in London last November, and then in Copenhagen in December during the UN's Climate Change Conference. In July this year Ghost Forest will be exhibited for a year on the lawn of Oxford University's Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum. The exhibition will coincide with the Museum of Natural History's 150th anniversary this year, and the UN's International Year of Biodiversity. In 2011 it is the UN's International Year of Forests."
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow
to keep an appointment with a beech-tree,
or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. ~ Henry David Thoreau
Though a tree grows so high, the falling leaves return to the root. ~ Malay proverb
Sometimes Thou may'st walk in Groves,
which being full of Majestie will much advance the Soul. ~ Thomas Vaughan
Image: the exhibit at Oxford
