A Cultural Forest
Although this wondrous exhibit has come and gone, I was so captivated by the idea of it, it bears an encore. On July 10, the Sydney Opera House was literally brought to life when French artist Pierre Huyghe unveiled his large-scale masterpiece for the Biennale of Sydney – an indoor forest of real trees.
The chairs and stage of the Concert Hall have been removed and literally transplanted with a magical forest of trees blanketed in a light mist suggesting early morning dawn. The installation, called A Forest of Lines, was a special free 24-hour event open to the public.
The spectacular one-off installation was described by Biennale director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev as “one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever been involved with.”
“This is the latest piece of the Biennale of Sydney to open and it is the most important in terms of size, scope and scale…but it will last only the time of a candle flame,” she said.
“It is both a beautiful image and a reality in one of the most iconic buildings of the twentieth century, and it’s a free event open to everyone in the location of the elite in the Sydney Opera House.” The vast installation of more than 1000 trees borrowed from nurseries around Sydney has been created to fit with the biennale theme Revolutions: Forms That Turn.
