STELLENBOSCH TRIENNALE IN SOUTH AFRICA

I was honored to create the accompanying text for the Environmental Land Art Installation, BREATHE CONGO: A Reflection On The Growing Deforestation of Central Africa’s Rainforest, which was presented outside the Curatorial Exhibition of the inaugural Stellenbosch Triennale in South Africa from February 11th through April 30th 2020. 

BREATHE CONGO is a living interactive land art piece. A spiraling path of trees. An opportunity to go inward and to reflect. Into the green. Into the breath. Honoring the Green Heart of Africa. The world’s Second Lung. Our African Lung. A meditative path and an elemental gesture contemplating the beauty and fragility of our relationship and interdependence with one another and with our natural world.

Every tree a silent majestic witness, and an urgent reminder,

That we exist now and our collective future is in our own hands.

A spiral, like breath, is both radiating out and drawing inward. Infinite.

Without beginning and without end.

The root of the word ‘spiral’ comes from the Latin spirare: to breath, to inspire, to expire.

This is our earthly contract with the trees and the forests.

We only exist in togetherness.

They are breathing us.

And we are breathing them.

The choices we make now are creating the future.

TOMORROW THERE WILL BE MORE OF US.

May we be wise. May the trees and forests still remain.

May the breath be without end. May it not spiral out of control.

May we be the path for the footsteps of our children and their children and the children of their children’s children.
The breath of the future.
May we be the miracle memory.

May we become the wise ancestors who left a natural world worthy of its future dreamers.

Pieter Colyn, BREATHE CONGO: A Reflection On The Growing Deforestation Of Central Africa’s Rainforest, 2020

Syzyguim guineense trees, hessian fabric, wood chips, red earth, mirror
Materials and Construction: Langverwacht Nursery and Langverwacht Landscaping 

Text: Emilie Miller and Pieter Colyn