THE GHOST FOREST
Ghost Forest is a major art installation of 10 primary rainforest tree stumps which were brought to Europe from a commercially logged forest in Western Africa by the artist Angela Palmer. The work is intended to highlight the alarming depletion of the world’s natural resources and in particular the continued rate of deforestation. Today, a tropical forest the size of a football pitch is destroyed every four seconds, impacting on climate, biodiversity and the livelihoods of indigenous people. The trees in Ghost Forest – most of which fell naturally in storms – are intended to represent rainforest trees worldwide; the absence of their trunks is presented as a metaphor for the removal of the world’s lungs caused through the loss of our forests. The tree stumps were exhibited as a “ghost forest” in Trafalgar Square in London in November 2009, and then in Copenhagen in December during the UN’s Climate Change Conference. The Ghost Forest was then shown on the lawn of Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum for two years before moving in July 2012 to its permanent location, The National Botanic Garden of Wales, Carmarthenshire.
(Scroll down for the Ghost Forest documentary or click here)

Trafalgar Square, London

View of the Ghost Forest installation and the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London

BBC Arts Editor covering the Ghost Forest

Trafalgar Square, London

CNN Arts Editor covering the Ghost Forest

London

Angela Palmer talking logistics with her team

Being installed into Trafalgar Square, London

Ghost forest at Thorvaldens Plads, Copenhagen for the G20 Climate summit

BBC Science Editor, David Shukman covering the Ghost Forest in Thorvaldens Plads, Copenhagen during the G20 summit

The Ghost Forest outside the Natural History Museum, Oxford

The Artist talks to former Secretary General of the United Nations

Angela Palmer in Ghana

The tree stumps being measured in Ghana

The Ghost Forest being transported from Ghana

The Ghost Forest being transported from Ghana

The Ghost Forest being cleaned in Ghana ready for transportation