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Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.

2013 - 2016

Hollow

By

Synopsis

Commissioned to mark the opening of the University’s new Life Sciences building in the vicinity of the gardens, Hollow is a new public art work by artist Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye. Produced by Bristol-based arts producers Situations, the project is the result of three years’ research and sourcing of one of the largest tree samples amassed in the UK to date.

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Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.
Hollow 1
Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.
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Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.
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Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.

Developed in pursuance of a public art condition for University of Bristol Life Sciences building, over 10,000 unique tree species have been gathered from across the planet, from Yakushima, Japan to the White Mountains of California, with generous donations from the Herbario Nacional de México, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Kyoto University, the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard and many more. 

Katie Paterson recalls:“Some samples are incredibly rare – fossils of unfathomable age, and fantastical trees such as Cedar of Lebanon, the Phoenix Palm, and the Methuselah tree thought to be one of the oldest trees in the World at 4,847 years of age, as well as a railroad tie taken from the Panama Canal Railway, which claimed the lives of between 5,000 to 10,000 workers over its 50 year construction and wood is salvaged from the remnants of the iconic Atlantic city boardwalk devastated by hurricane Sandy in 2012.” 

The samples of wood span time and space and have been sourced from across the globe. From the oldest tree in the world to some of the youngest and near-extinct species, the tree samples contain within them stories of the planet’s history and evolution through time. From the Indian Banyan Tree, under which Buddha achieved enlightenment, to the Japanese Ginkgo tree in Hiroshima, a tree that witnessed and survived one of the darkest moments of human history. 

Spanning millions of years, Hollow is a miniature forest of all the world’s forests, telling the history of the planet through the immensity of tree specimens in microcosm. The exterior cluster structure reflects a forest canopy’s ecosystem, the forms of the Douglas Fir posts reflecting the varying heights of trees. The interior of Hollow tells the history of the planet through over 10,000 unique tree species, from petrified wood fossils of the earliest forests that emerged 390 million years ago to the most recent emergent species. 

Hollow was unveiled on 9 May at Royal Fort Gardens to mark the opening of the University of Bristol’s new Life Sciences building. 

#BristolHollow 

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    Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.

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    Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.

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    Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.

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    Hollow by Katie Paterson with Zeller & Moye, 2016. Courtesy University of Bristol and Situations. Photo Max McClure.

Collaborating with leading scientists and researchers across the world, Katie Paterson’s poetic and conceptual projects consider our place on Earth in the context of geological time and change. Her artworks make use of sophisticated technologies and specialist expertise to stage intimate, poetic and philosophical engagements between people and their natural environment. Combining a Romantic sensibility with a research-based approach and coolly minimalist presentation, her work collapses the distance between the viewer and the most distant edges of time and the cosmos. 

Katie Paterson is regarded as an artist working at the forefront of her generation. She has exhibited internationally, from London to New York, Berlin to Seoul, and her works have been shown in major exhibitions including the Hayward Gallery, Tate Britain, Kunsthalle Wien, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Her artworks are represented in collections including the Guggenheim, New York and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. She was winner of the Independent’s Creative 30 award ‘for Britain’s most creative young person’ and the winner of the Visual Arts category of the 2014 South Bank Sky Arts Awards. Katie was recently awarded an Honorary Fellowship at Edinburgh University recognition of her major contribution in fostering collaboration between the arts and sciences’. www.katiepaterson.org