Laid out around a majestic beech tree at the Museo Villa dei Cedri, «Homeland Fictions (a Constellation)», an installation by Monica Ursina Jäger, highlights vital energy. The work draws its inspiration from molecular structures with atoms in motion and at the same time from the universe with its heavenly bodies. Every feature of the cosmos, from microorganisms to macroorganisms, from living beings to inanimate objects, is made up of particles.
From infinitely small to infinitely large, Jäger also evokes the links that exist with past epochs, recorded in the elements and in living beings.This reference urges us to reassess our place in the world, between past and future, and to realize that our sense of belonging to the contemporary era is inseparable from our bond with more ancestral times.
Beech is the second most common tree species in the Swiss forest, accounting for 19% of all tree species. However, due to global warming and periods of drought, the number of beech trees in our latitudes is declining drastically. On the other hand, the oak, whose population in Switzerland declined sharply with the introduction of potato cultivation in the 18th century and the construction of the railway at the end of the 19th century, is increasingly recolonising the broadleaved forests.
The embrace of the oak rings by the beech, which is suffering greatly from climate change, thus represents a dialogue between the histories of these two trees, and at the same time reminds us of the urgency of the current ecological situation.
For more information on the artist: Monica Ursina Jäger.
