HOW MUCH FOR A TREE? HOW PLANNING GOES WILD AND THE VALUES OF TREES.

Abstract

This exhibition item contains a book, “How much for a tree” and a 4 channel video installation. The book investigates a planning process in Malmö, that turns out as a disaster. A hundred year old park is destroyed. The investigation of the process is done in the form of a drama, where all the people involved get to tell their version. The question that is posed is: What are the values that are destroyed by this planning disaster? The video installation tries to give an answer to the question from the authors’ point of view. What are the values of trees? There are numerous ways of valuing trees, from biologic estimation on the value for insects and other plants, from the perspective of the property owner, from the importance for the air quality in the city, etc. For telling the values of trees from non-anthropocentric view, the trees importance for humans is not important. A non-anthropocentric view values what trees are in themselves, as far as it is possible for human beings to identify. The authors, both artists, suggest that through artistic means it is possible to touch upon and communicate the real non-anthropocentric values of trees.