During the Covid-19 pandemic, like a lot of people, I found myself spending more time in nature, particularly in the parks of Brussels. The glorious trees of these parks became my friends and inspiration. Like them I felt I was reaching for the light, reaching for brightness, clarity, new horizons, freedom to soar.

I became a bit obsessed with trees, fascinated to learn as much as I could about who they are and how they live, and was stunned to discover that every year the world is losing about 10 million hectares of forest - roughly three times the size of Belgium. There’s a lot of focus on tree planting, but it takes decades, centuries, to replace the old growth and its ancient wisdom that preserves our planet.

Wanting to pay tribute to the ghosts of the trees that we’ve lost, I began to create pieces in white porcelain, inspired by what I saw and felt on my walks, and the dialogue that my hands had with the clay during the making process.

Over a period of three years, I hand formed about 50 pieces, carving stray words and bits of poetry into some. It was a long, slow journey, with about a third not surviving their time in the kiln. When the making was finally done, I was struck with the realization that it had been just the beginning.

May I invite you to remember the last time you walked in a forest or park?
How did you feel?

If you’d be willing to share a word or two about how you felt, please click here. All the received words will be written on a ‘tree tag’ and hung on a branch in the installation each time the project is shown. The tags are inspired by the historical toe tags used in morgues for identification and important information.

My hope is that together we can create a canopy of feelings that will connect us to each other and to all trees: Both to the ghosts of the ones we’ve lost as well as to the majesty of the ones that are still with us.