Illuminating Forestation represents our changing relationship and engagement with the trees of our world. The upper shape is derived from estimates and data on deforestation globally since 1700, and the lower shape is similarly derived from data on afforestation, or the replanting of trees, over the same time period. The curves were created by fitting polynomial lines to the discrete data from best estimates of forest usage over 300 years and more precise data collected in the last 50 years. The forms are stitched together with rattan, bridging the difference in our engagement with the natural world from our exploitation to our remediation, providing hope in our changing relationship with our ecosystem. The shades of the lamp are created from maple veneer vacuum-formed with epoxy and fiberglass to create the shapes, mixing a natural material with human-derived ones to create a piece that is both enticingly organic and offputtingly synthetic. Lit from the inside, the piece projects in the gap between the shades exactly how far we still need to go to begin to balance out our resource extraction from this portion of the natural world, encouraging future change for the better.
