Ghost Forest

This month, 10 colossal tree stumps landed on the lawns of Oxford University's Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum. Taken from commercially logged rainforest in Ghana, carefully shipped to the United Kingdom, and set on white pedestals, they make up Ghost Forest, an installation by the artist Angela Palmer which aims to raise awareness of the depletion of the planet's natural resources.

In her artist's statement, Palmer says she wanted to "[use] the negative space created by the missing trunks as a metaphor for climate change." The roots themselves also remind one of how complex, beautiful, and ultimately fragile the structures which support our environment can be. The Ghost Forest installation was previously exhibited in Trafalgar Square and in Copenhagen, outside the Danish Parliament. It will be at Oxford through July, 2011.

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