Veil of Trees
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Veil of Trees is an art installation within the grounds of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney. The work was designed by Janet Laurence and Jisuk Han as part of the Sydney Sculpture Walk Program in 1999, to highlight the indigenous botanical history of the site. It consists of 21 glass panels among one hundred red forest gums (Eucalyptus tereticornis) which run along a one hundred metre grassed ridge between two parallel roads.[1]
It’s trees I look for nowadays,
year after year
adding their rings. Recording
this month’s frost, that season’s
burning, the arrival
and departure of leaves, birds,
mice, barefoot invaders,
and applecore wars
in the kingdom of twigs.
…the tree
is dreaming our lives.
Its dust-thick shadow reaches
the road…
David Malouf — from Evergreen~Trees were their thoughts:
peppermint gum black-sally,
white tea-tree hung over creeks…
There is
there was
a country
that spoke in the language of leaves.
Judith Wright — from Falls Country~There are five different Scribbly Gums, like five
brothers in mythology, each bearing a significant
name: sclerophylla, signata, rossii, racemosa
and see the red rim of its fruit – haemastoma.
Murray Bail — from Eucalyptus~New trees step out of old: lemon and ochre
splitting out of grey everywhere, in the gum forest.
In there for miles, shade track and ironbark slope
Sky sifting, and always a hint of smoke in the light;
you can never reach the heart of the gum forest.
Les Murray — from The Gum Forest
The panels are made of glass edged with Corten-steel containing LED lighting. Some panels enclose historically native seeds, ash, honey and resin, while others have verses from poetry written by Australian writers and poets. The play of light on the translucent glass create a passage of reflection, and memory.[2]
The work aims to highlight the native natural environment and indigenous history, as well as the importance of historical preservation through botanical conservatories. The red gums refer to the forest of original gums axed as a result of early European settlement with hopes to rejuvenate the site with its native trees and grass plants.[3]
