Hollow Katie Paterson

From the artist:

A microcosmos of all the world’s trees.

‘Hollow’ is a new commission by the University of Bristol, made in collaboration with architects Zeller & Moye, permanently sited in the historic Royal Fort Gardens.

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 sculpture brings together 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. The samples of wood span time and space and have been sourced from across the globe, from Yakushima, Japan to the White Mountains of California. 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.