Ghost Forest

I apologize in advance for the strange appearance of some of these photos - blogger is acting up it seems and so I'm having to host all my photos off-site at flickr and link them here. Hopefully there won't be any hiccups. (P.S. Who ever decided that "hiccup" should be spelt "hiccough" like it is here. What nonsense is that?!)

Either way, to the point. Welcome, dear reader, to my DAY OF FUN! Well, not so much day of fun as it was first day out of the house/into London since I started working. And man, was it overdue. Glad to get out, and on a lovely day like today, I couldn't exactly stay in, now could I? No. That's right. Good job.

Okay, we're in Trafalgar Square. And, as you may have noticed, it's full of trees. There is a reason for this, and you can read all about it here. Basically, if you're too lazy to click that link and read a bit, I'll sum it up for you now:

"Ghost Forest is an original and ambitious project by Angela Palmer that seeks to raise public awareness of the connections between deforestation and climate change. It involves taking a series of 10 rainforest tree stumps, most with their buttress roots still attached, from a regulated, commercially logged tropical rainforest in Ghana."

Ta-da! It's art. Art with trees. That were lugged here from Ghana. But, they are pretty sweet. And it's not every day you see huge-ass trees in the middle of Trafalgar Square.

The man in the middle is the new statue that has been placed on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square. They are done with the one-person-every-hour thing for now and have put another exhibition on. This man in particular is Sir Keith Park, and you can read about him here.

Again, if you're too lazy, here's the basics:

"Sir Keith Rodney Park GCB, KBE, MC & Bar, DFC, RAF (15 June 1892 – 6 February 1975) was a New Zealand soldier, First World War flying ace and Second World War senior Royal Air Force commander. He was in tactical command during two of the most significant air battles in the European theatre in the Second World War, the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Malta. The Germans called him "the Defender of London"

It was very cool to see all these huge trees and read about this particular project. I like how all the trees and their roots looked against the building in the square, and, of course, I could say something artsy and throw in words like "juxtaposition" and whatnot, but I won't. Just enjoy the pictures, will you?