The artist Luke Jerram on the tree-planting project he’ll never see finished | Art

Luke Jerram, whose art installations have traveled the world, is philosophical about how his latest project will bear fruit beyond his time on Earth.

Known for his Play Me I’m Yours street pianos project and his Lunar Museum artwork, a seven meter diameter moon sculpture featuring detailed NASA images of the lunar surface, Jerram is currently working on Echo Wood, a living, breathing installation made from native British trees.

Planted in Somerset’s Chew Valley this winter in collaboration with the charity Avon Needs Trees, the 365 trees – crabapple, hawthorn and oak – will slowly grow into a massive 110 meter wide design that will take a century to fully emerge, long after Jerram is gone.

“I won’t be here in 50 to 100 years,” Jerram, 50, says next to a scale model of the project in his Bristol studio. “I’m at a stage in my career where I’m starting to look forward, I’m not looking back.

“I’m 50, it could be a mid-life crisis. I have close to 900 exhibitions now. It’s in forty countries around the world and the artworks are in about 80 museums. So all of a sudden you start thinking about old projects and not being able to keep those energy levels up.”

“I think there’s something quite nice about projecting yourself into the future, which is quite exciting.”

The living sculpture will form part of Lower Chew Forest, which will be one of the largest new woodlands in England when completed, covering 422 acres and 100,000 trees.

Paths and avenues, blooming at different times of the year, will be created to guide visitors to Echo Wood on a journey through the wood to a central, circular gathering space of 12 English oak trees.

As with many of his projects, Jerram wants this central space to encourage creativity. “It will create an event space. It can be used in weddings, educational activities, music, poetry, whatever you can think of,” he says.

Jerram’s other works, often touching on themes of nature and the climate emergency, include: Gaia, a seven-metre diameter Earth sculpture using NASA imagery; Helios, a Sun sculpture that uses detailed solar images to recreate the Sun’s surface; and Tipping Point, a simulated wildfire that combines smoke, light and sound.

Echo Wood is perhaps the closest representation of these themes, a symbol of the fight against climate change. “This is a way to physically do something about it. To use creativity to inspire the general public, but also to raise some money and help use the trees to create a legacy,” says Jerram. “What art can do is convey messages in a different language and allow those messages to reach people in a slightly different way.

“I often collaborate with scientists but also charities on how to communicate their ideas.”

Despite the lack of progress in tackling the climate crisis, Jerram says he is “always hopeful”, although he finds it scary that “tipping points will be crossed”.

“There’s a cute, funny illustration of a doctor with an Earth in front of them in the doctor’s chair looking a little sick,” says Jerram. “The world is saying: ‘I’m afraid we have a bad human infection right now.’ The doctor says: ‘Don’t worry, it will pass soon.’

“We are just the newest invasive species.”

The wood in the latest artwork will be sustainably harvested and used for educational and creative projects before the trees are replanted to continue their life cycle.

“I love the idea of ​​what you can do with wood—turn oak into playground equipment for urban schools or create a boat or musical instruments for urban children,” says Jerram.

Companies and individuals will be able to sponsor individual trees to raise money for Avon Needs Trees, which runs a number of tree planting projects across the region.

“Located at the heart of a brand new forest, Echo Wood is a symbol of optimism that with a little thought, creativity and determination we, and future generations, can tackle the climate and nature crises we face,” says Dave Wood, CEO of Avon Needs Trees. “Not a message in a bottle, but a message in wood, water and sunlight.

“We want as many people as possible to think of creative ways to tackle the climate and nature crises we face. By working with Luke, we are able to engage a whole new group of people who might not otherwise be able to travel to the countryside to see the work we are doing to increase woodland in a severely deforested part of the country.”