Ghost Forest - London

GHOST FOREST
Art Installation

‘The answer is simple. If we lose the world's forests, we lose the fight against Climate Change. Rainforests are our Earth's greatest utility - our planet's lungs, thermostat and air-conditioning system.’
Michael Somare, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea

Ghost Forest is an original and ambitious art installation which will dramatically raise public awareness of the connections between deforestation and climate change. A series of 10 primary rainforest tree stumps, most with their buttress roots still attached, will be presented as a 'ghost forest' firstly in Trafalgar Square in London in November, and then in Copenhagen to coincide with the UN Climate Change Conference in December. The future of rainforests will lead the agenda at the conference, which will be attended by over 11,000 delegates from 192 countries. The Ghost Forest tree stumps are being taken from a regulated, commercially logged tropical rainforest in Ghana. Permission has been granted by theGreater London Authority to stage Ghost Forest in Trafalgar Square from November 16 to 22. It will then move to Copenhagen for exhibition in Thorvaldsens Plads, a magnificent city centre square close to the National Museum and Parliament Square.

The negative space created by the missing trunks will present a powerful metaphor for climate change – the absence representing the removal of the world‟s „lungs‟ through continued deforestation. Both locations provide a powerful stage for the installation. Trafalgar Square is one of the world‟s most visited tourist sites and the epicentre of Western industrialisation over the past 200 years. Nelson‟s Column stands over 50 metres (169 feet) tall, the approximate height many of these trees would have stood at in the wild. In Copenhagen, the Ghost Forest tree stumps will stand as symbols of threatened rainforest trees throughout the world as the 11,000 delegates debate their future. Eight indigenous species will be represented - Denya, Dahuma, Danta, Hyedua, Kyere, Mahogany, Celtis and Wawa - all with a rich and varied ecology and all with equally diverse uses by man.
While the trees should stand unadorned and impressive, there will be important opportunities to provide information to feed the public‟s curiosity. In addition to information boards in Trafalgar Square, further details about each species, the biodiversity they support, their proportions in the wild, the functions and products they provide once felled, will be available on the project‟s dedicated website www.ghostforest.org (going live end of September).

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