honest leaders admit mistakes
June 2018
Exhibited in the Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2018
Metal twigs: Cast silver twigs (taken from Sheffield trees condemned to be chopped down) under spotlight, mounted on painted grey-board. Dimensions: circle with 640mm radius and light at 2.5m high.
Book: A3 black, hand-bound book with own photos, handwritten silver text and yellow ribbon. Displayed on plinth with display board. Displayed on plinth with dimensions: 1200x1350x350mm
Pin badges: own design, for viewers to take in exchange for donation to be made to S.T.A.G. (Sheffield Tree Action Group). Displayed on plinth with dimensions 230x1220x230mm
Streets Ahead is a £2.2 billion, 25 year Private Finance Initiative contract between Sheffield City Council and the Public Limited Company, Amey, to maintain the city’s roads, pavements, streetlights, and trees. Over the last five years 5,500 street trees have been felled and another 12,000 are to follow (overall that’s 50% of the city’s street trees). The majority of these trees are healthy and causing no damage to the roads or pavements and the tiny sapling ‘replacements’ are not sufficient. “Although renewing street trees is vital work, to cut down so many in such a short space of time is ecological vandalism.” - https:// savesheffieldtrees.org.uk
Having grown up in Sheffield, this is a subject close to my heart. My family and friends have been directly affected by the environmental vandalism and the way in which the police have dealt with them as protestors (at one protest there was 33 officers and 20 security staff for one tree). Not only are we fighting an environmental battle but also a social injustice.
I travelled back to Sheffield to attend a large protest march in the city centre and collect information and materials that I could use in my work. I returned to Glasgow with hundreds of twigs from condemned trees, sawdust from felled trees and many photos. I also managed to ask many local people how they felt about the situation.
The work that I have made for degree show is a simple display. Scattered on the floor of the gallery space, under a spotlight, are a handful of delicate metal twigs, cast from trees that are condemned to be cut down. They have been cast in silver, although in the future I would like to cast them in steel so as to link them to the steel industry that Sheffield is so famous for. I have also created and displayed a book, composed of photographs and text that together communicate my understanding of, and my reaction to the extreme felling from an environmental standpoint. This contemplative work questions the value of street trees and the necessity to protest for both their and our survival.
This issue is serious and I believe that people outside of Sheffield need to be aware of it as similar felling is currently happening in a number of cities across the UK. To spread the word throughout degree show I have created pin badges with the phrase ‘honest leaders admit mistakes’ on for people to take and wear. I hope for this to encourage conversation about the felling and raise awareness and support for the cause.
honest leaders admit mistakes
(text written in book displayed at exhibition)
Streets Ahead is a £2.2 billion, 25 year Private Finance Initiative contract between Sheffield City Council and the Public Limited Company, Amey,
to maintain the city’s roads, pavements, streetlights, and trees.
Under my left foot a twig snaps, a sharp but quiet sound.
The noise is instantly forgotten, as my right foot hits the ground.
5,500 street trees felled in a mere 5 years,
with another 12,000 to follow (that’s 50% of the city’s street trees).
A number so large that it’s difficult to comprehend,
a loss so great that it is easy to loose.
A surreal situation.
Having seen so many taken,
I am becoming desensitised
to the pain of watching a great tree fall.
Too easily I can close the blinds,
so simply I can distract myself
but today, something stops me.
I step back and reassess.
A twig snaps under my left foot, a sharp but quiet sound,
that cuts through the noise of the city, as my right foot hits the ground.
The benefits of trees, in no particular order:
Air pollution reduction
Flood prevention (a Sustainable Urban Drainage System)
Energy conservation due to temperature regulation
Biodiversity and stablised soil
Prevention of water pollution
Habitat
Health and Well-Being
Environmental education
urban foraging
Property price
Noise buffering
Wind buffering
Carbon sequestration
Crime reduction
Highway performance enhancement
Visual amenity
Speed reduction
Oxygen production,
they produce the air we breathe.
A solemn thud brings an end to a natural pillar of power
that for 200 years converted CO2 into oxygen.
The scent of sawdust wafts through the air,
beneath the noses of the surrounding protesters,
held back from protecting the alveoli of the lungs of the planet
by a specialist police protest removal unit.
33 officers and 20 security staff,
clearly something is wrong.
Like many of the 5,500 already felled,
it has done no harm to the pavement.
The healthy tree was not a hazard,
yet now, where it once stood tall and proud,
lies a scattering of reminders
and an entanglement of dying roots
that will soon rot and decay, causing collapses
underneath the houses and streets.
Evidently, the cause for the chop
is not purely the potholes and protruding pavements.
As we rise up to reclaim power
we expose the bare roots of distrust.
Forgive us and attempt to understand
why we don’t see any negativity in the term “treehugger”.
Photosynthesis: carbon dioxide + water (+ light energy) → glucose + oxygen
Respiration: glucose + oxygen → carbon dioxide + water (+ energy)
The world is watching and it is directly affected by our actions.
The role of the trees for the future of the planet is undeniably vital.
This is a public-private partnership gone wrong.
Victorians planted street trees to help clear the steel factory smog,
How have we changed then,
from ‘steel city’ to ‘stump city’?
Honest leaders admit mistakes.
Let us have an expert-led approach to the management of the trees.
Let us be rid of this environmental vandalism.
Make democracy in Sheffield effective.
A twig snaps under my left foot, a sharp but quiet sound.
I pick it up and give it purpose, it wanted to be found.
Its patient buds waited throughout the winter,
never to unfurl into the hopeful green leaves of spring.
However, a handful of them are now preserved,
in memory of a greener time, and in hope of another.