Cambio
Serpentine Galleries, 2020
Cambio, from the medieval Latin cambium, 'change, exchange', is an investigation conducted by Formafantasma and commissioned by Serpentine Galleries1 in London (March – November 2020) and Centro Pecci in Prato (May - October 2021) into the governance of the timber industry.
The evolution of this form of commerce over time, and its tentacular expansion across the globe, has made it challenging to regulate. It grew out of the bioprospecting that took place throughout colonial territories during the nineteenth century, becoming one of the largest industries in the world both in terms of the revenue it generates and the impact it has on the planet's biosphere.
The earliest objects in the exhibition are samples of rare hardwoods first exhibited in the Great Exhibition of 1851, a few hundred metres from this building, which represent trees logged to the point of extinction. The newest are the exhibition display furniture and seating designed by Formafantasma, all of which were made from a single tree blown over in a storm in northern Italy in 2018. Contained in every piece of wood is an archive of climatic change and the movement of natural materials around the world.
Cambio also references the cambial layer, a membrane that runs around the trunk of trees, producing wood on the inside, a record of the tree’s past, and bark on the outside, enabling it to keep growing. Like the rings of a tree, the central spaces of the exhibition present data and research in the form of interviews, reference materials and two films made by Formafantasma in response to their research, while the perimeter spaces offer a series of case studies that provide insight into the way wood is sourced and used. Each of these investigations represents a collaboration with experts from the fields of science, conservation, engineering, policymaking and philosophy. Together, they move from a microscopic analysis of wood and its ability to store carbon dioxide, to a metaphysical understanding of trees as living organisms.This multidisciplinary exhibition highlights the crucial role that design can play in our environment, and its responsibility to look beyond the edges of its borders. The future of design can and must attempt to translate emerging environmental awareness into a renewed understanding of the philosophy and politics of trees that will encourage informed, collaborative responses.
The earliest objects in the exhibition are samples of rare hardwoods first exhibited in the Great Exhibition of 1851, a few hundred metres from this building, which represent trees logged to the point of extinction. The newest are the exhibition display furniture and seating designed by Formafantasma, all of which were made from a single tree blown over in a storm in northern Italy in 2018. Contained in every piece of wood is an archive of climatic change and the movement of natural materials around the world.
Cambio also references the cambial layer, a membrane that runs around the trunk of trees, producing wood on the inside, a record of the tree’s past, and bark on the outside, enabling it to keep growing. Like the rings of a tree, the central spaces of the exhibition present data and research in the form of interviews, reference materials and two films made by Formafantasma in response to their research, while the perimeter spaces offer a series of case studies that provide insight into the way wood is sourced and used. Each of these investigations represents a collaboration with experts from the fields of science, conservation, engineering, policymaking and philosophy. Together, they move from a microscopic analysis of wood and its ability to store carbon dioxide, to a metaphysical understanding of trees as living organisms.This multidisciplinary exhibition highlights the crucial role that design can play in our environment, and its responsibility to look beyond the edges of its borders. The future of design can and must attempt to translate emerging environmental awareness into a renewed understanding of the philosophy and politics of trees that will encourage informed, collaborative responses.
Exhibition - South Gallery
The exhibition opens with two pieces that introduce the physical matter of wood and its properties; a two-screen projection, and two sections of a tree trunk. Together, they offer a re-evaluation of trees – as sources of information, constantly recording global climate change, as the solution for mitigating these changes by storing carbon dioxide as they grow, and as a warning against over-management and monocultured forests that are more vulnerable to intense weather events. The smell, developed by smell researcher and artist Sissel Tolaas, evokes the wet earth and flora of a forest, offering an immersive reminder of what is at stake when we lose this environment.
The tree displayed – an oak, or Quercus – was grown in Garnstone Forest, Herefordshire, England and brought to the gallery from a sawmill in East Sussex. The branches and much of the bark has been removed, and the trunk has been sawn into planks and air-dried ready for use. These first stages of processing capture the tree when it has been transformed from a living being into an object.
The moving image work takes its title, 1858, from the first year that the tree shown in the film created a ring. One video shows the process of extracting a coring from the tree, a technique used by dendroclimatologists to analyse its rate of growth; widely-spaced rings indicate a lot of growth, while close-set rings show very little growth. These differences can be compared against data from other trees, known temperatures and rainfall, providing a record of the effects that climate change has had on the tree over the course of its lifetime. The numbers scrolling across the bottom are data obtained from a number of different trees in the Alps, which together indicate a rise in temperature in this region.The second video follows the topography of a valley in Northern Italy, the Val di Fiemme. Managed by the community living in the valley since the middle ages, the forest of the Val di Fiemme was ravaged by storm Vaia in 2018. More than thirteen million of these trees were blown down, requiring an immediate response from the community. There were several factors in the urgency of this effort: to prevent the wood from decaying and releasing unanticipated amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; to safeguard the community’s livelihood; and to learn from the disaster by reintroducing a larger variety of species into the valley.
One of these felled trees has been used by Formafantasma in 1858 and has provided the wood for all of the displays and seating designed by them throughout the exhibition. This decision was made as an indicator of their belief that materials should be chosen by designers on the basis of more than simply aesthetic reasons – that their original context and method of extraction need to be considered as well.
East Gallery
This section of the exhibition presents forensic research undertaken by Formafantasma with a number of different scientific institutions into the data that can be found in wood. Following on from the coring procedure shown in the first gallery space, wood products are investigated as holders of carbon dioxide, as records of their origins even while they undergo carving, pulping (for paper) or fire (for charcoal). The analysis of these mundane objects, many of which are still produced from protected species, can help to regulate logging practices around the world, and offer manufacturers, designers and users better information about the impact of their material choices.
COLLABORATION: Centrum Hout, Almere
Each individual stool in this stack has been produced using a different wood species common to Europe. As trees grow, they store carbon dioxide, and if the wood is used for production, rather than for fuel, the carbon dioxide remains held within it. The density of each wood type corresponds to its differing rate of growth and ability to store carbon dioxide. In general, a denser wood will take longer to grow, and will store more carbon dioxide.
The replication of a single design – here, a stepped stool distributed by IKEA – in seven different species of wood is an experiment into this balance. The mass production of this popular object is an example of a production model that assumes constant renewal of the source material and disposability of the item. However, for wood products to be truly sustainable, they need to have a service life that is at least the same length of time that it took for the tree to grow. The order of the stools reflects the different service lives of these species.
The service life of each object has been calculated against the optimal rotation age of the species it was made from. Ultimately, mass production of furniture has given users access to affordable objects whose usable life may well be too short to justify the felling of the trees required to produce them.
To maximise the timber industry’s contribution to climate change mitigation, the best strategy is to focus on sustainable forest management focused on carbon accumulation in the forest, combined with a steady increase in the life span of wood products that are able to store the carbon dioxide they hold for a longer time.
The exhibition opens with two pieces that introduce the physical matter of wood and its properties; a two-screen projection, and two sections of a tree trunk. Together, they offer a re-evaluation of trees – as sources of information, constantly recording global climate change, as the solution for mitigating these changes by storing carbon dioxide as they grow, and as a warning against over-management and monocultured forests that are more vulnerable to intense weather events. The smell, developed by smell researcher and artist Sissel Tolaas, evokes the wet earth and flora of a forest, offering an immersive reminder of what is at stake when we lose this environment.
The tree displayed – an oak, or Quercus – was grown in Garnstone Forest, Herefordshire, England and brought to the gallery from a sawmill in East Sussex. The branches and much of the bark has been removed, and the trunk has been sawn into planks and air-dried ready for use. These first stages of processing capture the tree when it has been transformed from a living being into an object.
The moving image work takes its title, 1858, from the first year that the tree shown in the film created a ring. One video shows the process of extracting a coring from the tree, a technique used by dendroclimatologists to analyse its rate of growth; widely-spaced rings indicate a lot of growth, while close-set rings show very little growth. These differences can be compared against data from other trees, known temperatures and rainfall, providing a record of the effects that climate change has had on the tree over the course of its lifetime. The numbers scrolling across the bottom are data obtained from a number of different trees in the Alps, which together indicate a rise in temperature in this region.The second video follows the topography of a valley in Northern Italy, the Val di Fiemme. Managed by the community living in the valley since the middle ages, the forest of the Val di Fiemme was ravaged by storm Vaia in 2018. More than thirteen million of these trees were blown down, requiring an immediate response from the community. There were several factors in the urgency of this effort: to prevent the wood from decaying and releasing unanticipated amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; to safeguard the community’s livelihood; and to learn from the disaster by reintroducing a larger variety of species into the valley.
One of these felled trees has been used by Formafantasma in 1858 and has provided the wood for all of the displays and seating designed by them throughout the exhibition. This decision was made as an indicator of their belief that materials should be chosen by designers on the basis of more than simply aesthetic reasons – that their original context and method of extraction need to be considered as well.
East Gallery
This section of the exhibition presents forensic research undertaken by Formafantasma with a number of different scientific institutions into the data that can be found in wood. Following on from the coring procedure shown in the first gallery space, wood products are investigated as holders of carbon dioxide, as records of their origins even while they undergo carving, pulping (for paper) or fire (for charcoal). The analysis of these mundane objects, many of which are still produced from protected species, can help to regulate logging practices around the world, and offer manufacturers, designers and users better information about the impact of their material choices.
COLLABORATION: Centrum Hout, Almere
Each individual stool in this stack has been produced using a different wood species common to Europe. As trees grow, they store carbon dioxide, and if the wood is used for production, rather than for fuel, the carbon dioxide remains held within it. The density of each wood type corresponds to its differing rate of growth and ability to store carbon dioxide. In general, a denser wood will take longer to grow, and will store more carbon dioxide.
The replication of a single design – here, a stepped stool distributed by IKEA – in seven different species of wood is an experiment into this balance. The mass production of this popular object is an example of a production model that assumes constant renewal of the source material and disposability of the item. However, for wood products to be truly sustainable, they need to have a service life that is at least the same length of time that it took for the tree to grow. The order of the stools reflects the different service lives of these species.
The service life of each object has been calculated against the optimal rotation age of the species it was made from. Ultimately, mass production of furniture has given users access to affordable objects whose usable life may well be too short to justify the felling of the trees required to produce them.
To maximise the timber industry’s contribution to climate change mitigation, the best strategy is to focus on sustainable forest management focused on carbon accumulation in the forest, combined with a steady increase in the life span of wood products that are able to store the carbon dioxide they hold for a longer time.
On the anatomy of trade
COLLABORATION: Thünen Institute, Hamburg
Every year, thousands of products made from illegally-sourced timber are discovered at customs being imported into the EU. According to Interpol, this material accounts for 15-30% of all global timber trade.
The objects on the shelves have been collected in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium in the last twelve months. They have been analysed by the Thünen Insitute and the Royal Africa Museum in order to determine the exact species of wood used to make them, a forensic process that has revealed the complex network of often illegal international trade. Some examples include rare wood found in musical instrument parts, and endangered species within charcoal.
COLLABORATION: Centrum Hout, Almere
The title of the installation, 5 years, refers to the amount of time it will take for a single tree – specifically, one pine tree growing in Central Europe – to reabsorb the same amount of carbon dioxide that will released by these objects once they are discarded. The objects on the table have been selected because they are all single use or packing products made from wood or wood pulp.
COLLABORATION: Thünen Institute, Hamburg
In an attempt to map the species of wood used in books printed globally, Formafantasma sourced a selection of different copies of Darwin’s On the origin of species, printed in a number of different countries. Paper from each book was microscopically analysed by the Thünen Institute, in an attempt to identify the relationship between the location of the printer and the origin of the species used for the paper. The film 200/500 μm shows microscopic images of the internal structures of various wood fibres, both in the paper and in the wooden objects.
The results revealed there to be little to no relationship between the geographical site of the printer and the ecosystem that provided the wood for the paper they are using. Although most papers are made of a mixture of different pulps – often from diverse places and species – the most common were Pine (Pinus spp.) and Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.).
Fast-growing wood species used for the production of pulp and paper can now be found widely distributed in the globe, regardless of where they grew originally. Given the rapidly rising demand for paper and other pulp products, the increase in fast-growing plantations is likely to continue to replace endemic ecosystems.
A good example amongst the selection of books here is the copy printed in Brazil, on paper made from Eucalyptus. Its natural distribution covers Australia and Malaysia, but with countries like Brazil now exporting large amounts of pulp, this fast-growing tree has replaced species native to South America. Paper production is just one part of the timber industry where efficient productivity is favoured over diversity.
Resonance wood provided by Opere Sonore by CIRESA
The form of these two speakers, designed by Formafantasma, has been reduced to the minimum possible required to project sound: soundboards, like those incorporated into acoustic guitars, pianos, or harpsichords, transistors and an amplifier.
The soundboards have been made from spruce wood grown in the Val di Fiemme, Italy. This particular type of wood is called ‘resonance wood’, and is selected by instrument makers for the best possible sound production. Musical instruments are one of the wood products most likely to be made from hard woods that are endangered. The preference for this material is often justified by the quality of the sound produced by rare species, but on a microscopic level, rosewood (often used for recorders) and spruce resonance wood (such as the wood used for these speakers) have similar anatomical traits that lend themselves to sound production.
South Powder Room
Constructed in the format of a visual essay, this film investigates how the industry of timber has evolved over time. It asks how a networked understanding of materials can be applied to a more holistic approach to design, and draws connections between timber’s physical materiality and the abstract but pervasive conditions of exploitation, colonialism, and consumerism.The film starts with the appearance of primordial plants on Earth, their evolution into trees, and the subsequent flourishing of human life across the planet. It continues with the global expansion of the timber industry in conjunction with the European imperialist agenda, and its later shift towards the development of sustainable forestry practices and environmental conservation.Shot in a former Italian plantation for paper production, it makes use of chroma key compositing – a process by which it is possible to ‘layer’ images over existing footage by introducing green screens into the frame while shooting, and collaging other images or footage in later. Various different colours have been used in television and film to achieve this effect, but green has become one of the most commonly used – as with most technologies – due to human features. The human eye evolved to differentiate movement and depth against the green of the forest, and what has become an instinctive disregard for flora in favour of the potentially dangerous fauna has been called ‘plant blindness’. Here, the forest is never a background – it is the subject matter and focus of the film.
COLLABORATION: Thünen Institute, Hamburg
Every year, thousands of products made from illegally-sourced timber are discovered at customs being imported into the EU. According to Interpol, this material accounts for 15-30% of all global timber trade.
The objects on the shelves have been collected in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium in the last twelve months. They have been analysed by the Thünen Insitute and the Royal Africa Museum in order to determine the exact species of wood used to make them, a forensic process that has revealed the complex network of often illegal international trade. Some examples include rare wood found in musical instrument parts, and endangered species within charcoal.
COLLABORATION: Centrum Hout, Almere
The title of the installation, 5 years, refers to the amount of time it will take for a single tree – specifically, one pine tree growing in Central Europe – to reabsorb the same amount of carbon dioxide that will released by these objects once they are discarded. The objects on the table have been selected because they are all single use or packing products made from wood or wood pulp.
COLLABORATION: Thünen Institute, Hamburg
In an attempt to map the species of wood used in books printed globally, Formafantasma sourced a selection of different copies of Darwin’s On the origin of species, printed in a number of different countries. Paper from each book was microscopically analysed by the Thünen Institute, in an attempt to identify the relationship between the location of the printer and the origin of the species used for the paper. The film 200/500 μm shows microscopic images of the internal structures of various wood fibres, both in the paper and in the wooden objects.
The results revealed there to be little to no relationship between the geographical site of the printer and the ecosystem that provided the wood for the paper they are using. Although most papers are made of a mixture of different pulps – often from diverse places and species – the most common were Pine (Pinus spp.) and Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.).
Fast-growing wood species used for the production of pulp and paper can now be found widely distributed in the globe, regardless of where they grew originally. Given the rapidly rising demand for paper and other pulp products, the increase in fast-growing plantations is likely to continue to replace endemic ecosystems.
A good example amongst the selection of books here is the copy printed in Brazil, on paper made from Eucalyptus. Its natural distribution covers Australia and Malaysia, but with countries like Brazil now exporting large amounts of pulp, this fast-growing tree has replaced species native to South America. Paper production is just one part of the timber industry where efficient productivity is favoured over diversity.
Resonance wood provided by Opere Sonore by CIRESA
The form of these two speakers, designed by Formafantasma, has been reduced to the minimum possible required to project sound: soundboards, like those incorporated into acoustic guitars, pianos, or harpsichords, transistors and an amplifier.
The soundboards have been made from spruce wood grown in the Val di Fiemme, Italy. This particular type of wood is called ‘resonance wood’, and is selected by instrument makers for the best possible sound production. Musical instruments are one of the wood products most likely to be made from hard woods that are endangered. The preference for this material is often justified by the quality of the sound produced by rare species, but on a microscopic level, rosewood (often used for recorders) and spruce resonance wood (such as the wood used for these speakers) have similar anatomical traits that lend themselves to sound production.
South Powder Room
Constructed in the format of a visual essay, this film investigates how the industry of timber has evolved over time. It asks how a networked understanding of materials can be applied to a more holistic approach to design, and draws connections between timber’s physical materiality and the abstract but pervasive conditions of exploitation, colonialism, and consumerism.The film starts with the appearance of primordial plants on Earth, their evolution into trees, and the subsequent flourishing of human life across the planet. It continues with the global expansion of the timber industry in conjunction with the European imperialist agenda, and its later shift towards the development of sustainable forestry practices and environmental conservation.Shot in a former Italian plantation for paper production, it makes use of chroma key compositing – a process by which it is possible to ‘layer’ images over existing footage by introducing green screens into the frame while shooting, and collaging other images or footage in later. Various different colours have been used in television and film to achieve this effect, but green has become one of the most commonly used – as with most technologies – due to human features. The human eye evolved to differentiate movement and depth against the green of the forest, and what has become an instinctive disregard for flora in favour of the potentially dangerous fauna has been called ‘plant blindness’. Here, the forest is never a background – it is the subject matter and focus of the film.
North Powder Room
COLLABORATION: Vanessa Richardson, European Investigation Agency
One side of this central space is dedicated to a film that focuses on the governance of the timber industry and how this is structured today, touching upon the major European and global regulations and regulatory bodies involved in
it. The four reading points on the other side, meanwhile, have been designed by Formafantasma, and offer direct access to a website that holds reference materials collected by the design studio over the course of the past eighteen months. These include filmed interviews with the specialist collaborators that informed the projects on display in this exhibition, reading materials, reference images and links form a living archive of the designers’ research-led practice. Together, the resources in this space aim to offer a greater level of transparency, both in the research and thinking of design practice, and in the structure of a global industry.The film Seeing the wood for the trees addresses the current state of the timber industry, showing images and documents set against the forest floor and also using the green screen technique that was employed for Cambio, shown in the next room. The text of the voiceover was conceived in conversation with Formafantasma and written by Vanessa Richardson of the European Investigation Agency. Organisations like the EIA fight against the practice of illegal logging and to uphold the principles of sustainable forestry using international certification systems such as the FSC and PFSC.
Like the film in the space next door, Seeing the wood for the trees employs green screen, or chroma key compositing, to illustrate the text, but offers only the forest floor as a background; the viewpoint of the camera, pointing straight down, echoes the film’s discussion of forest governance ‘from above’.
North Gallery
COLLABORATION: Kew Gardens
The objects and images on display in this space have all been sourced from the Economic Botany Collection in Kew Gardens and the storage spaces of the V&A (shown in the film at the end of the gallery). The wood samples from Kew were first displayed in the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the International Exhibition of 1862, close to this building, and were intended to be used like a catalogue of the British Empire’s timber resources. The V&A can also trace its history to these exhibitions, but rather than holding raw materials, it has amassed a collection of furniture and objects that record the application of many of these species of wood by designers and makers. Real and virtual images are overlaid in the film at the end of the space, pointing to the missing links that connect an object with its place of origin, and highlight contemporary design’s ongoing appetite for an endless library of materials.The wood samples on display in this space were first brought to London from all over the British Empire, and the various labels on the samples give clues as to the collectors’ understanding of the wood’s indigenous use, and its possible purpose after import. The name of the collection at Kew – the Economic Botany Collection – points to the value ascribed to these resources. Very little information is given as to the societal or ecological reality of the areas from which these woods were extracted, however, with perhaps one exception – a small sample of Green Ebony, which has already been noted as extinct on its nineteenth-century label.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 and the International Exhibition of 1862 were some of the first instances of materials, industrial development and the potential resources of the British Empire being brought together for the public. These seminal moments in the foundation of design thinking and art education were nevertheless inextricably related to the environmental, social and economic legacies of colonialism.
Today, the purely economic function of the Economic Botany Collection has been superseded by new, conservation-led principles; samples from these woods are used to provide comparative data against which products like those on display in the East Gallery can be tested, to prevent the consumption and distribution of illegally-logged wood.
COLLABORATION: Vanessa Richardson, European Investigation Agency
One side of this central space is dedicated to a film that focuses on the governance of the timber industry and how this is structured today, touching upon the major European and global regulations and regulatory bodies involved in
it. The four reading points on the other side, meanwhile, have been designed by Formafantasma, and offer direct access to a website that holds reference materials collected by the design studio over the course of the past eighteen months. These include filmed interviews with the specialist collaborators that informed the projects on display in this exhibition, reading materials, reference images and links form a living archive of the designers’ research-led practice. Together, the resources in this space aim to offer a greater level of transparency, both in the research and thinking of design practice, and in the structure of a global industry.The film Seeing the wood for the trees addresses the current state of the timber industry, showing images and documents set against the forest floor and also using the green screen technique that was employed for Cambio, shown in the next room. The text of the voiceover was conceived in conversation with Formafantasma and written by Vanessa Richardson of the European Investigation Agency. Organisations like the EIA fight against the practice of illegal logging and to uphold the principles of sustainable forestry using international certification systems such as the FSC and PFSC.
Like the film in the space next door, Seeing the wood for the trees employs green screen, or chroma key compositing, to illustrate the text, but offers only the forest floor as a background; the viewpoint of the camera, pointing straight down, echoes the film’s discussion of forest governance ‘from above’.
North Gallery
COLLABORATION: Kew Gardens
The objects and images on display in this space have all been sourced from the Economic Botany Collection in Kew Gardens and the storage spaces of the V&A (shown in the film at the end of the gallery). The wood samples from Kew were first displayed in the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the International Exhibition of 1862, close to this building, and were intended to be used like a catalogue of the British Empire’s timber resources. The V&A can also trace its history to these exhibitions, but rather than holding raw materials, it has amassed a collection of furniture and objects that record the application of many of these species of wood by designers and makers. Real and virtual images are overlaid in the film at the end of the space, pointing to the missing links that connect an object with its place of origin, and highlight contemporary design’s ongoing appetite for an endless library of materials.The wood samples on display in this space were first brought to London from all over the British Empire, and the various labels on the samples give clues as to the collectors’ understanding of the wood’s indigenous use, and its possible purpose after import. The name of the collection at Kew – the Economic Botany Collection – points to the value ascribed to these resources. Very little information is given as to the societal or ecological reality of the areas from which these woods were extracted, however, with perhaps one exception – a small sample of Green Ebony, which has already been noted as extinct on its nineteenth-century label.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 and the International Exhibition of 1862 were some of the first instances of materials, industrial development and the potential resources of the British Empire being brought together for the public. These seminal moments in the foundation of design thinking and art education were nevertheless inextricably related to the environmental, social and economic legacies of colonialism.
Today, the purely economic function of the Economic Botany Collection has been superseded by new, conservation-led principles; samples from these woods are used to provide comparative data against which products like those on display in the East Gallery can be tested, to prevent the consumption and distribution of illegally-logged wood.
The archive of lost forests
The furniture pieces in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s storage, shown in this film, were assembled as examples of exceptional craftsmanship and industrial production. Conceived as a source of inspiration for the development of a formally and technically sophisticated design culture in Britain, this collection of objects showcases the properties of different woods and the skill of designers and makers. However, European design also had to adapt to reductions in the availability of certain species due to overlogging.
Nineteenth-century illustrations of British settlements in Jamaica can be found reflected in the polished surfaces of some of the V&A’s furniture. Jamaica was the source of a great deal of mahogany that can now be found in Europe, initially for shipbuilding, which helped Britain’s expansion of its colonies, and later for cabinet-making.Although the exact source of the wood in the V&A furniture cannot be determined, the origins of the wood samples in the Economic Botany Collection at Kew have been carefully catalogued.The most contemporary collection included in the film is the virtual wood library offered by the popular 3D rendering software Keyshot, which includes rare and endangered woods as available for designers to apply to the surfaces of their forms. Digital tools such as this can be used to simulate finished objects, and without a critical intervention into context or sustainability, appear to perpetuate the myth of an endless supply of materials.
West Gallery
The combination of images, text and film in this section of the exhibition takes a view of forestry that moves beyond the extraction of resources and attempts to understand the complex ecosystems that forested regions contain. It does so by bringing together approaches to the governance and management of both European and Amazonian forests, and compares changes in these approaches over time and from different geopolitical perspectives.
The two very different mapping techniques displayed here also prompted a conversation between Formafantasma and the political scientist Philip Pattberg. The gap between technological mapping devices and national regulations, the transnational experiences of the communities that live in Amazonia and international agreements, has produced a regulatory vacuum in which no legislation dedicated to forest governance yet exists.Displayed on the tables are a set of existing regulations that mention the governance of forests. However, none of these documents have forestry as their focus; rather, they have incorporated the subject into other, often wide-ranging agreements. The proposals written by Philipp Pattberg, meanwhile, drew on several of them to suggest future forest governance strategies. These documents constitute a series of speculative proposals that range from the feasible to the speculative.International Convention on the Conservation, Use and Equitable Sharing of Forest Ecosystems It is based on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) from 1992-93, which is exhibited on the table nearby, but it focuses specifically on forests and invites the creation of national plans for their preservation.
Amsterdam Protocol on Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation This is a protocol that could be written based on the existing Convention on Biological Diversity. This protocol adopts a similar strategy to the United nation REDD program and proposes the implementation of a repayment plan to remunerate the owners of forests, who in turn agree to preserve them and their ability to continue to store carbon dioxide.
International Agreement on Sustainable Forest Management and National Certification Schemes This agreement proposes the setting up of national certification schemes so that wood extraction and circulation would no longer be based on existing private certification schemes (PFC and PEFC).
Universal Declaration of Trees’ Rights This document is both the most radical and the most straightforward, applying the structure of the universal declaration of human rights to trees.
The furniture pieces in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s storage, shown in this film, were assembled as examples of exceptional craftsmanship and industrial production. Conceived as a source of inspiration for the development of a formally and technically sophisticated design culture in Britain, this collection of objects showcases the properties of different woods and the skill of designers and makers. However, European design also had to adapt to reductions in the availability of certain species due to overlogging.
Nineteenth-century illustrations of British settlements in Jamaica can be found reflected in the polished surfaces of some of the V&A’s furniture. Jamaica was the source of a great deal of mahogany that can now be found in Europe, initially for shipbuilding, which helped Britain’s expansion of its colonies, and later for cabinet-making.Although the exact source of the wood in the V&A furniture cannot be determined, the origins of the wood samples in the Economic Botany Collection at Kew have been carefully catalogued.The most contemporary collection included in the film is the virtual wood library offered by the popular 3D rendering software Keyshot, which includes rare and endangered woods as available for designers to apply to the surfaces of their forms. Digital tools such as this can be used to simulate finished objects, and without a critical intervention into context or sustainability, appear to perpetuate the myth of an endless supply of materials.
West Gallery
The combination of images, text and film in this section of the exhibition takes a view of forestry that moves beyond the extraction of resources and attempts to understand the complex ecosystems that forested regions contain. It does so by bringing together approaches to the governance and management of both European and Amazonian forests, and compares changes in these approaches over time and from different geopolitical perspectives.
The two very different mapping techniques displayed here also prompted a conversation between Formafantasma and the political scientist Philip Pattberg. The gap between technological mapping devices and national regulations, the transnational experiences of the communities that live in Amazonia and international agreements, has produced a regulatory vacuum in which no legislation dedicated to forest governance yet exists.Displayed on the tables are a set of existing regulations that mention the governance of forests. However, none of these documents have forestry as their focus; rather, they have incorporated the subject into other, often wide-ranging agreements. The proposals written by Philipp Pattberg, meanwhile, drew on several of them to suggest future forest governance strategies. These documents constitute a series of speculative proposals that range from the feasible to the speculative.International Convention on the Conservation, Use and Equitable Sharing of Forest Ecosystems It is based on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) from 1992-93, which is exhibited on the table nearby, but it focuses specifically on forests and invites the creation of national plans for their preservation.
Amsterdam Protocol on Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation This is a protocol that could be written based on the existing Convention on Biological Diversity. This protocol adopts a similar strategy to the United nation REDD program and proposes the implementation of a repayment plan to remunerate the owners of forests, who in turn agree to preserve them and their ability to continue to store carbon dioxide.
International Agreement on Sustainable Forest Management and National Certification Schemes This agreement proposes the setting up of national certification schemes so that wood extraction and circulation would no longer be based on existing private certification schemes (PFC and PEFC).
Universal Declaration of Trees’ Rights This document is both the most radical and the most straightforward, applying the structure of the universal declaration of human rights to trees.
Governance
COLLABORATION: Gaia Amazonas, Bogotá
The images of hand drawn maps originate in communities that work with the foundation Gaia Amazonas in the Colombian Amazon. Together, they use experience, conversation and GPS technology to define their territories by highlighting important materials, sites of ritual and society, landmarks and history. These are maps that do not respect geopolitical boundaries, but instead offer the communities’ understanding of the region as a biome. This information is then translated into official maps that support legal documents that recognise their right to live on and protect these areas.
Originally initiated in 1970, the RadamBrasil project was a collection of aerial photographs and radar images that, when aligned, aimed to cover an extensive area of the Brazilian rainforest. Its purpose was originally intended to reveal the location of natural resources for economic exploitation, but over time this documentation has become a useful comparative tool to demonstrate the extensiveness of the Amazon’s biomass and, since the project’s inception, the spread of deforestation.
Quercus
COLLABORATION: Emanuele Coccia
This film has been produced by manipulating a Lidar scan of an oak forest in Virginia. Lidar technology, which comes from the terms ‘light detection and ranging’, uses lasers to scan and record large surface areas and has often been used in cartography and archaeology. More recently, it has been adopted by the timber industry in order to selectively log trees. Like the RADAM maps nearby, however, it could be repurposed – here, it provides an opportunity to consider humans from the point of view of the trees, with a voiceover written by philosopher and botanist Emanuele Coccia.
Coccia’s text questions our own sense of dominance, observing rather the degree to which humanity is dependent upon the form and physicality of trees, from the perspective of an imagined forest. It suggests a crucial shift in perspective if we are to find more radical ways of living with and protecting these complex ecosystems – one that stems from the understanding that humans and trees are inextricably interlinked.
COLLABORATION: Gaia Amazonas, Bogotá
The images of hand drawn maps originate in communities that work with the foundation Gaia Amazonas in the Colombian Amazon. Together, they use experience, conversation and GPS technology to define their territories by highlighting important materials, sites of ritual and society, landmarks and history. These are maps that do not respect geopolitical boundaries, but instead offer the communities’ understanding of the region as a biome. This information is then translated into official maps that support legal documents that recognise their right to live on and protect these areas.
Originally initiated in 1970, the RadamBrasil project was a collection of aerial photographs and radar images that, when aligned, aimed to cover an extensive area of the Brazilian rainforest. Its purpose was originally intended to reveal the location of natural resources for economic exploitation, but over time this documentation has become a useful comparative tool to demonstrate the extensiveness of the Amazon’s biomass and, since the project’s inception, the spread of deforestation.
Quercus
COLLABORATION: Emanuele Coccia
This film has been produced by manipulating a Lidar scan of an oak forest in Virginia. Lidar technology, which comes from the terms ‘light detection and ranging’, uses lasers to scan and record large surface areas and has often been used in cartography and archaeology. More recently, it has been adopted by the timber industry in order to selectively log trees. Like the RADAM maps nearby, however, it could be repurposed – here, it provides an opportunity to consider humans from the point of view of the trees, with a voiceover written by philosopher and botanist Emanuele Coccia.
Coccia’s text questions our own sense of dominance, observing rather the degree to which humanity is dependent upon the form and physicality of trees, from the perspective of an imagined forest. It suggests a crucial shift in perspective if we are to find more radical ways of living with and protecting these complex ecosystems – one that stems from the understanding that humans and trees are inextricably interlinked.
For this project, Formafantasma collaborated with experts from the fields of science, conservation, engineering, policymaking and philosophy. They have gathered a range of texts, interviews and visual materials for the publication that pose questions about the role that design can play in translating emerging environmental awareness into informed, collaborative responses. Extending the principals of this project to the catalogue, the paper used in the book has been microscopically investigated to confirm it doesn’t contain cells from endangered species. The catalogue includes texts by: Jennifer L. Anderson, Paola Antonelli, Emanuele Coccia, Formafantasma, Lesley Green, Rebecca Lewin, Vanessa Richardson, Paolo Tavares and Mauro Agnoletti. Additionally, the catalogue includes interviews with: Faustino Londoño & Nelson Ortiz, Frederic Lens, Mark Nesbitt & Caroline Cornish, Phillipp Pattberg, Pieter Baas, Kaisa Raitio, Marco Fioravanti and Artek. It is designed by SJG/Joost Grootens and Dimitri Jeannottat.Edited by Riccardo Badano, Rebecca Lewin, Natalia Grabowska, Cristiana Perrella, foreword by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Bettina Korek, introduction by Formafantasma.
This multidisciplinary exhibition highlights the crucial role that design can play in our environment, and its responsibility to look beyond the edges of its borders. The future of design can and must attempt to translate emerging environmental awareness into a renewed understanding of the philosophy and politics of trees that will encourage informed, collaborative responses. The catalogue3 is published by Walter Koning and designed by Joost Grootens with contribution by: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Rebecca Lewin, Paola Antonelli, Paulo Tavares, Emanuele Coccia, Lesley Green, Jennifer Anderson and a selection of interviews conducted during the research period.
Order the catalogue here: Serpentine Bookshop
This multidisciplinary exhibition highlights the crucial role that design can play in our environment, and its responsibility to look beyond the edges of its borders. The future of design can and must attempt to translate emerging environmental awareness into a renewed understanding of the philosophy and politics of trees that will encourage informed, collaborative responses. The catalogue3 is published by Walter Koning and designed by Joost Grootens with contribution by: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Rebecca Lewin, Paola Antonelli, Paulo Tavares, Emanuele Coccia, Lesley Green, Jennifer Anderson and a selection of interviews conducted during the research period.
Order the catalogue here: Serpentine Bookshop
