As my project develops, I am increasingly drawn to the idea of mirroring the natural environment in a series of birch-inspired forms which will encourage the viewer to contemplate and share the sense of place from which I find my inspiration: the woods around Towneley Park and the Smallholdings Trail.
There are several “forest” installations to be seen in Europe and beyond. Here are some that captured my imagination and inspired me to follow the “forest installation” route in my own work.
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw
The museum was opened in 2014, the building designed by Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamaki. The Core Exhibition contains eight galleries which present a thousand years of the history of the largest Jewish community in the world.
One of these galleries is entitled “FOREST.”
The inspiration for the gallery is based on the legend from medieval times when Jews were escaping persecution in Western Europe. They reached the land of today’s Poland, where they heard birds in the forest singing “Po-lin! Po-lin!”. In Hebrew and Yiddish this means “rest here.” The Jews saw this as a sign from God and settled in the land which became Poland.
The land was covered with thick woodland, and the legend is recreated in the Forest Gallery, helping the viewer to imagine Poland the way it was when the first Jews arrived there.
I find the history and the legend to be inspirational. I love the canopy and the dappled light it sheds onto the “forest”. I have toyed with the idea of transferring photographs and words onto my own ceramic birch forms and now I see how effective this could be. Definitely an area for me to explore further.
Authors of the design project: 180heartbeats + JUNG v. MATT and Bad Design
Nizo Design International – realisation of the Forest gallery and installation.
Victoria and Albert Museum Forest Without Leaves.
This installation was specifically designed for the Victoria and Albert Museum in cooperation with the Iran Heritage Foundation. It was based on Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami’s concept that we have lost the ability to look at nature in natural surroundings and only when an item is “framed” and then placed in an artificial or museum environment do we observe it in detail.
I disagree with his concept. The great outdoors, and forests in particular, have long been recognised as calming, meditational and healing places to be. How many of us delight in the close observation of nature, especially trees, as we observe the changing seasons and the cycle of growth, decay, and renewal? Perhaps Mr. Kiarostami could do with a little Forest Bathing session or two? As the exhibition was created in 2006, he may have changed his mind since then!
Although I disagree with his concept, I find the exhibition/installation to be AMAZING!!
The installation was a three-dimensional forest of trees, made up of eighty huge hollow tubes, each one five metres in length, completely covered by life size photographs of bark each digitally merged from 75 digital images.
As the installation progressed it was felt lacking in physical interaction and a more inclusive approach was adopted – a forest of trees that the visitor could walk through, touch or even hug!
Due to the rich architecture in the museum space, it was concluded that there would be a clash within the environment, hence an enclosure was built. The vertical surfaces were clad with mirror to provide the illusion of an endless space. (I had the same idea for presenting my own work, the creation of an illusory endless forest, reinforcing the truth that whatever idea you have, someone has always done it before!!)
Forest Without Leaves - Kiarostami, A. (2006)
Sir David Chipperfield – Sticks and Stones
Leading British architect Sir David Chipperfield won recognition in Britain with the building of two galleries, namely the Turner Contemporary in Margate and the Hepworth Wakefield, both of which opened in 2011, gaining him a knighthood. He is based in Germany, where he had already won the order of Merit, Germany’s national decoration. His choice of working in Germany is down to the fact that he maintains that the state better supports the institutions as they benefit from “a sort of seriousness – and … there is money, basically.”
He began work on the restoration and repair of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 2014, the museum closing for several years of work by Chippendale and his team. The last exhibition before the museum closed was an installation by Chipperfield himself, entitled “Sticks and Stones.” It consisted of 144 sprucewood columns, each eight metres tall, perfectly aligned with the ceiling’s symmetrical grid and stretching down to the dark, reflective granite floor.
The installation recalled the forest’s dense symbolism in German literature and folklore. (See previous entry “Perceptions of Forests Dec 23, 2020.) The column itself was used by the Nazis as a sign of authority, and after World War Two was unable to be used architecturally. “It was the most loaded and the most intense part of architecture and we lost it.”
“There is nothing more complex or more simple than to arrange 144 columns… .. and wait to see what it does spatially . . . you see different symmetries, different spaces; you create rooms and vistas, and, in a way that’s what architecture is: it’s nothing more than the arrangement of structure, walls, enclosure, view, shelter and material. (Chippendale, D. 2014)
How interesting to read the architect’s view of his installation. The words he uses have a coolness about them, less emotionally connected somehow.
He touches on a concept which has great interest for me, that of the use of space. I am keen to develop a spatial awareness with regard to my work; seeing how the pieces connect to each other and how they connect to the space they are in.
The exhibition’s double-meaning title refers to the children’s rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Chipperfield claims the inherent power of architecture is far beyond words:
“In a way (the title) reinforces the idea that the physical is more important than the written or the spoken, which we, as architects, have to believe in.” (Chipperfield, D. 2014)
Katie Vota’s Birch Forest
Katie Vota is a versatile Chicago-based artist working mainly in textiles but also uses plastic and found materials to create sculptures, installations and environments. This installation interested me as she wanted to take the feeling of being immersed in a birch forest and bringing it into the gallery. This rang bells with me as I share her aspiration and I was intrigued to find out how successful she was, using PAPER as a material!
“It wasn’t just the beauty of the trees that kept coming back again and again to capture my interest, but the stillness of the forest, the bird sounds… the wind rustling through the branches, and the crunch of leaves under my feet. This over-all “feeling” of a forest lodged itself somewhere in the back of my mind, lurking in wait …to be realised.”
Katie began by using stencils to cover the walls of the gallery, then began to construct the “trees” which didn’t stand up on their own. Eventually they were suspended from the ceiling. Paper “leaves” were scattered across the floor, ready to be scattered by the visitors.
Applying stencils to the gallery wall Constructing paper “trees”
I admire the vision of Katie Volta but I think that the installation works on a limited level. I feel that such a project would be fun to make with young children who could participate in the making of the “forest”, then have great fun playing amongst the trees and leaves, widening the project to include creative writing and other aspects of the curriculum. As an installation for the adult viewer, however, I find the installation too simplistic as it fails to realise the feeling of being immersed in a birch forest.
Vota, K. Birch Forest 2012 artLab space Krasl Art Centre, St. Joseph, MI
Samantha Dickie Imprint
Canadian artist Samantha Dickie’s work excites me on so many levels! So many aspects of her work resonate with me. For her, there is beauty in imperfection; her work invites a sensory experience as she connects to the natural world that is in a constant state of growth, decay, and fragility. The forms she creates seem so natural that they could have been plucked or dug up from the earth yet they show the unmistakable mark of the artist’s hand. I am interested in the way she creates MULTIPLES of forms and CLUSTERED INSTALLATIONS, the very essence of my own birch forest project.
“Through the use of abstract multiples, I aim to extract the embodied experience of being saturated in nature where the relevance and irrelevance of our existences collide. The natural world, in it’s vastness and repeated forms, reminds us that we collectively belong to something far bigger than ourselves, while also remaining individually unique.” (Dickie, S. 2003)
Imprint was created during a residency at Banff Centre for the Arts in 2003. It reveals the stories of lives seen and vanished. This installation of 50 small hand-carved and smoke-fired towers ranging from 12 to 32 inches tall, creates a visual narrative that is visceral and raw while embedded in a paradox of the beauty of decay.
Samantha Dickie Viveka: the Radiance of discernment
This was Samantha Dickie’s solo exhibition at the Seymour Public Gallery in Vancouver, BC, Canada in 2017. Drawing on research from neuroscience, psychology and ancient philosophy, this exhibition of Dickie’s work explores the benefits of stillness and observation. The result is a multi-sensory exhibit designed as a response to the collective and palpable yearning within us to find a small reprieve from the tyranny of time.
Stillness is not just about quiet, but also about the pause about the space between sounds and thoughts. ”Hear the Presence ,” as sound ecologist Gordon Hempton writes.
With over 550 pieces, Viveka invites the viewer to slow down and engage in an immersive environment where sculptural objects fill the ceiling, walls and floor. A discordant pattern of water drops fall onto marimba keys, creating a simple soundscape which permeates the silence in the gallery.
Dickie maintains that “The immersive quality of the show is essential ….. I aim to create a space of contemplation where silence and presence can become an embodied object of observation within the visual narrative.”
I find the beauty and the tactile, sensory nature of Dickie’s forms quite stunning, but when seen in multiples, the groupings take on an importance of their own, making the overall effect simply breathtaking. Her work, to my mind, is perfection and it encourages me to strive for the same. Below are examples of Dickie’s multiple forms as seen in her Viveka Exhibition.
Hold Being Held
Viveka
Moment in Time
My experiments with multiple forms, ready for testing using oxides, slips and glazes
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