Sara Vrugt is a Dutch artist who works mainly with embroidery and in the context of nature. Frustrated by our powerlessness to prevent the destruction of forests worldwide she came up with the idea of a huge embroidered forest, a threaded forest. A 4 metre high immensely long (think Bayeux tapestry) embroidery of trees from spring through to winter, their roots growing and ‘talking’ beneath them, to be hung on a spiral frame. Eventually, this would be ‘planted’ in a park so that real trees could grow up through it and, over time, consume the embroidery.
Here it is in one of the locations in which it was shown before being finally ‘planted’ outdoors last year.
The project was conceived as a communal enterprise so large embroidery frames were set up for several months at a time in libraries around Holland and visitors to the libraries were invited to stitch to Sara’s design. No matter whether you were a skilled embroiderer or had never held a needle; all were welcome and many returned day after day, caught up in the general enthusiasm.
Friendships were made, barriers broken down, skills acquired – and stories were told. The kernel of each story was stiched into the black ‘skirt’ which ran round the bottom of the embroidery – roots reaching out to communicate with each other.
The work, which had started in 2019, was interrupted by the pandemic. But, not to be deterred, Sara posted embroidery kits to her keen volunteers who stitched leaves at home to be attached the the main canvas when they could return to communal work.
But the embroidery was only half of the project. Over the course of the two years it took to complete she also wanted to raise the money to plant 100,000 trees: 1,000 in the Netherlands and, under the guidance of Tree Sisters, 99,000 in the tropics. And, amazingly, she did.
If you would like to see the project unfold there is an excellent 20 minute documentary here on YouTube. Well worth 20 minutes of your time.
And my thanks to the Sculpture Network, a Europe, indeed world-wide, network of ‘artists, curators, collectors, and enthusiasts who share a passion for contemporary sculpture… providing a platform for collaboration, inspiration, and innovation’.
I am not a sculptor, nor indeed an artist but at some point I seem to have got onto their mailing list. Although I have never been to any of their meetings or the exhibitions they visit, I have often logged in to their On Line Club, set up during the pandemic, for Zoom talks by some of their members. And last night was one such meeting. A talk by Dutch architect Piet Vollaard about Louis G le Roy, a landscape architect, wild gardener and creator of the eco-cathedral – followed by Sara Vrugt talking about her Threaded Forest.
Thank you Sculpture Network – and I can’t wait for the next one.
Is summer over already?…..