2011
in a forest
"I have used the residency here in Berlin to focus in-depth on producing a significant body of new work that engages with history in relation to the social and cultural histories of a particular group of trees. These trees were given to gold medallists at the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games. Often said to have been given by Hitler and often referred to as 'Hitler Oaks', the then seedlings, were in fact given by the Olympic committee to around 130 medalists who then returned to their homes all over the world - in most cases with the seedlings.
One of these trees, now an adult oak, grows in my home town of Timaru, New Zealand, in the grounds of Timaru Boys High School. This tree became the centrepiece of my enquiry and represented a beginning point of this project when I photographed it in 2005…"
From the artist's statement for the exhibition
# 1/1
Part of the ongoing series