Situations and BBC Get Creative launch a digital forest for the future

11 May 2016 02:47 PM

Bristol-based public art producers Situations in association with BBC Four and Get Creative have launched TREEBANK, a collection of memories, impressions and creative responses which capture how trees shape our existence on the planet.

The visually stunning and fully interactive TREEBANK website will allow users to upload, explore and share stories that together will create a picture of how we relate to trees at this snapshot moment in time.

Submissions might include descriptions of a particular place and time, of a rare and ancient tree or of a common but personally significant tree.   Visitors to the site can upload a sound recording or video, an image or text.  The living memories will help to build a digital forest for the future.

TREEBANK marks the launch of Hollow, a new public artwork by artist Katie Paterson, in collaboration with architects Zeller & Moye. Commissioned to make the opening of theUniversity of Bristol’s new Life Science building, the artwork will be permanently sited in the historic Royal Fort Gardens in Bristol.

"Hollow allows us to connect in new and previously unimagined ways with the beauty, complexity and depth of the natural world."

Professor Guy Orpen, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol and Chair of its Public Arts Committee

Hollow is a miniature forest, a collection of tree species that tell the history of the planet in microcosm.  The artwork contains over 10,000 unique tree species, from petrified wood fossils of the earliest forests that emerged 390 million years ago to the most recent emergent species.  It is the result of three years’ research and sourcing, the collection built through the generosity of arboretums, xylaria, herbaria and collectors worldwide.

The making of Hollow featured in a BBC Four documentary about Katie Paterson.

Situations, a National portfolio organisation, opens up the potential for artists to make extraordinary ideas happen in unusual and unexpected places such as Theaster Gates’ Sanctum in Bristol last November.  TREEBANK is an example of Situations’ commitment to exploring new technologies, pushing the boundaries of public art projects and questioning what is and could be public space.

BBC’s Get Creative campaign encourages participation in creative activities and celebrates the arts and culture that happen every day across the nation.