TREE-INSPIRED IMMERSIVE ART INSTALLATION TO TAKE ROOT IN BROADMEAD WEST NEXT WEEK
All you need to know about ‘Overstory’ - a free-to-attend artistic installation by leading contemporary artists, Ivan Morison and Heather Peak - opening Friday 19th Aug Artistic details have been revealed for Overstory, a free-to-attend summer art installation from leading contemporary artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak. The artwork will take root in Broadmead from Friday 19th - Tuesday 30th August – brought to Bristol by The Natural History Consortium, the charity behind the city’s Festival of Nature. A pair of suspended structures featuring microscopic imagery of trees, Overstory will hang above Broadmead for two weeks, highlighting the importance of urban tree cover in alignment with Bristol’s tree planting strategy to expand the city’s tree canopy by 2050. Overstory’s title is inspired by the 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winning novel by ecological author Richard Powers, focusing on the deep importance of trees and the fight to preserve them. For the first headline cultural project for 2022/23 from Bristol’s City Centre and High Streets Recovery and Renewal programme, the artists were inspired by native trees across Bristol. The contemporary artwork will temporarily transform Broadmead, with visitors invited to enjoy the installation, alongside enjoying a programme of engaging, fun and free activities involving art and nature. 6
Overstory grew from the artists’ visits to Bristol’s stately homes, neighbourhood parks, suburban streets, gardens, estates, greens, and graveyards, to find two trees whose stories reflect the true spirit of the City. The artists explained: “We used to live among trees and now they live around us, when we should be living together symbiotically.” Immersing visitors into the microscopic world of trees to celebrate and consider how they are folded into our lives through their presence around us, the artwork will represent their functions within our shared ecosystems, the stories they tell, and the role we can all play in creating and protecting natural spaces in our cities. Featuring images of bright, microscopic cellular tree systems, the artwork comprises two geometric zig-zag canopies in the sky. The design blends vibrant shapes of the microscopic imagery with sharp, repeating folded lines, creating views that gradually change as the art is viewed from the ground below. The two artworks, both 65 m2 will be installed eight metres above ground at either end of Broadmead in the heart of Bristol.
