fabric in the landscape

fabric wrapping : colossal

OLsen Zander

Welsh-born artist and photographer Olsen Zander has been wrapping trees in white fabric around the UK for the better part of a decade. 


Tree Line
The series of constructed photographs is situated in the forest.  They are executed in Surrey, Hampshire and Wales.  They are site specific that Zander sees as interventions with the landscape.  The tree "wraps" are done with white material and is to be seen as a visual relationship among the trees, the un-tree objects and the horizon: or what you would see if you were behind the camera's viewfinder.  So you are the photographer, the constructor of the image and image viewer.  A dynamic position to have. 

Another artist working with trees and wraps are:kjellgrenkaminsky Joakin Kaminsty and Maria Poll

More images on FLICKR

Clear Cut

This work was done during the summer of 2011. The artists would go into the forest of norther Sweden. They carried 15 meters of reflective fabric - the mirror affect. They wanted to use these strips to interpret the life cycle of the forest.

These however are not natural in indigenous forests. Apparently 90% of the Swedish forests are used in forestry therefore the life cycles are interrupted - here they only live 60 years. The artists seek to make a connection with/to time. Memory visualization of an earlier more verdant time.  The mirror like strips take in the light, color and smells (via memory) but also the cut lines that are their future. They hope to evoke, through memory, such sensual experience and use it to save what stands for the future. 
 
The artists "lived" in this environment, observing the changes - a dialog of surroundings, time of day, sun set/raise, the duration of the night and the incoming mist and the tree/reflections. 

Joakin and Maria, left, without a trace.  And as it should be.  We should enter a place and leave without change. We are not the natives...our rights are not extended into these places.  Replant, replacing is not ours.

A tree flag:

This post was inspired by Lynne Hoppe tree flags. Lynne drapes trees with silk flags.  I find this to be a very special gesture in restrict to the ancients.  I hope we all find time to visit a tree.