i have cut some trees / 2016
In February 2016, while passing through Alexanderplatz (Berlin), I ran into a couple of activists that approached me, in the same fashion as they did with other by-passers, offering flyers. These pamphlets were written in German, but also had an English version, on the backside. Excerpts: "End deforestation! Stop cutting our lungs!". Afterwards, there were some things written about pollution. I honestly couldn't have agreed more. I like nature and I do a lot of hiking. I am fully against cutting trees and abusing wood irrationally. I did all my best to protect nature, every time I had the chance - supporting campaigns, doing my all I could to preserve the amazingly beautiful natural sculptures - that are. our overall lung.
The situation that I found myself in was contradictory: they had printed all of their materials quality paper, and had benefited from an industrial printer, that surely did this on an pretty large scale. I started laughing and I asked them if they were joking, thinking that this was an intended irony. I found it to be a bit out of place. Then one of them was very happy to get a response. He seemed like a nice guy. He continued talking to me about the problems connected to deforestation in Central and Eastern Europe, about the Amazon region and some other stuff - that unfortunately I have forgotten. His speech made sense. But they had a lot of kilos of these leaflets in their backpacks - which were printed on a very good paper, shiny - really professionally done (not the recycled type). I left Alexanderplatz with the idea to do a work about this situation: of people abusing trees in order to suggest the fact that trees are being abused.
Two months later I addressed myself directly to the woodcutters, who happen to be the ones responsible with the cutting.
Thank you, Clara and thank you, Étienne. You guys were heroes for having resisted the painful love of stinging nettles.
photos: Clara Antony
This project was developed during the writing Residency of Abbaye Royale de Saint Jean d’Angély, Odyssée Program – ACCR, with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication