20 I recently came across (browsing the web) Angela Palmer’s exhibit of tree roots at Trafalgar Square, London. The exhibit was installed on November 2009.


I recommend for my readers to read Ms Palmer’s statement to learn of the artist’s activities. Currently the show is being exhibited on the lawn of Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum in central Oxford and will be shown there until July 31, 2011.

While Angela Palmer calls her exhibit a “Ghost Tree Exhibition” and I dedicate my “Temple to Johns” to axed forests, I believe that our concerns are the same.

As irony would have it, even as I posted my two previous blogs, a small forest next to my property was torn down by the owner of the property abuts mine. I say “torn”, because modern technology can quite manage without the chain saw handled by human hands. While a saw cuts the stump, the operation actually resembles Jack the Ripper at his worst. Of course, I am speaking from the point of view of one who believes the forests to be holy places even from a quite practical point of view. Are the floods in Pakistan not the result of a lack of forests to absorb the rains?

Incidentally, I believe that Ms. Palmer’s exhibit is in its own fashion a temple. If you live in England, it might be worth visiting it and writing a letter to this blog about your impression.