Linda Solomon Wood talks with Esther Shalev-Gerz about 'The Shadow'
This video is with Parisian artist Esther Shalev-Gerz and National Observer's Linda Solomon Wood. It is the first in a 10-part series called Human/Nature, exploring the intersection of climate, environment and culture in Canada. Shot by Bill Weaver in August on Cortes Island at the peak of British Columbia's wildfires, the video captures the artist as she reflects on her work and the times in a landscape that looks post-apocalyptic. Esther Shalev-Gerz was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, and grew up in Israel. She has lived in Paris since 1984 and has shown her work widely in Europe, but she spends her summers in British Columbia, where she owns a home.
Shalev-Gerz: When the fires are burning, and when I see this red sun, it makes me so sad because it burns away this place that we can worship. We’re finally starting to open up to what a tree can teach us because it’s much longer on this planet than us.
Solomon Wood: What has drawn you to do a commission that concerns trees?
Shalev-Gerz: It is about understanding nature as us. This is about industrial revolution and the acts that we, as a society, all over the globe, committed since the last 100, 200 years. It’s a moment that allows us to reflect on something that is important. I’ve been on Cortes since ’92 and I’ve been in BC since ’84, and what surprises me the most coming from Europe is you can extend your hand and you’re in prehistory, here.
Solomon Wood: So what is this?
Shalev-Gerz: I wanted to show you, here, what happened when a year after I had the idea and started to work about The Shadow. One of the only old growth tree crashed and fell down. So big was the impact on the earth. I didn’t understand until I came to here and saw the impact of this giant lying on the ground horizontally, and us walking and us being erect.
Solomon Wood: Was that part of what informed the design that you made?
Shalev-Gerz: Yes, and no. But you understand that your idea was so right. You understand that your idea cut through where we are today.
Solomon Wood: Right now we are engulfed in smoke and all over British Columbia forests are burning. How do you see your work in connection with what’s going on in the world?
Shalev-Gerz: This Shadow invites us to imagine that all the trees all over the world are getting together with the lightening and the wind and starting to burning all at once. Just to let us know that this is the outcome if we continue to ignore the way we are living. It may be looking into the sky we will finally get it. Maybe there will be a reconciliation with nature.
