Art / Exhibitions
The tiny global forest at Bristol University
For three years Katie Paterson has been amassing the collection of tree samples which will now transport people around the world, from Atlantic City to Hiroshima to Lebanon as a new art installation is revealed at Bristol University.
Visitors to a small wooden pavilion at Royal Fort Gardens can experience Hollow, the ‘modernist grotto’ which will be open during daylight hours all year round.
Hollow has been commissioned to mark the opening of the university’s new Life Sciences building and produced by Bristol-based arts organisation Situations, the group behind last year’s 24-day soundscape Sanctum, with the aim behind Hollow to tell the story of our planet’s history and evolution through time.
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Paterson has exhibited work internationally, often exploring geological time, space and our our place on Earth, which she continues with this latest installation.
“Some samples are incredibly rare – fossils of unfathomable age, and fantastical trees,” Paterson says about the pieces of wood inside the pavilion.
Hiding among the 10 000 tree samples inside the two-person structure is a piece of a bristlecone pine called the Methuselah Tree (one of the oldest trees on Earth), a railroad tie taken from the Panama Canal Railway and a fossil from a 390 million-year-old forest that once stood where New York now sprawls.
The architects of Hollow, Zeller & Moye of Mexico City and Berlin, describe it as “an introverted and meditative space where, whether sitting or standing, one finds oneself embraced by history”.
They added: “Our design conjoins thousands of wooden blocks of differing sizes to form one immense cosmos of wood producing textures, apertures and stalactites. Openings in the vaulted top let in just enough natural light to create the dappled light effect of a forest canopy.”
The huge collection of tree species have been donated from private collectors, arboretums and botanical gardens from around the globe and contains millions of years of human history. Current research taking place at Bristol University includes global issues such as food security, the loss of biodiversity, and climate change.
“It’s certainly a captivating way to celebrate the important work taking place in our world-leading Life Sciences building” Says Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University Professor Guy Orpen.
“Hollow allows us to connect in new and previously unimagined ways with the beauty, complexity and depth of the natural world.”
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For more information about Hollow, visit www.hollow.org.uk