Spanish artist ESCIF has teamed up with cultural initiative Splash and Burn, curated by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic and coordinated by Charlotte Pyatt, for their latest endeavor, titled REWILD. This ambitious, multifaceted project is centered around a stunning land intervention, supplemented by murals, and culminating with a short film. The entire project is inspired by “the upcoming UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, reflecting on the warning that we have just 12 years before climate change reaches a point that would trigger a global catastrophe,” according to a recent press release. It approaches this topic through the lens of the problematic palm oil plantations, and alongside partnerships with sister organizations Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) and Orangutan Info Center (OIC).
Those previously unacquainted with REWILD can discover it on the giant screens adorning the new Flannels store on Oxford Street. However, a full appreciation of this massive undertaking requires the knowledge of its many pieces.
ESCIF carved an enormous rewind symbol into 360 hectares of a palm oil plantation in Indonesia, which Splash and Burn explains is now part of “a new forest restoration site acquired by our charitable partners.” Splash and Burn explains, “the Rewind symbol is a hopeful message symbolic of that fact that it is not too late to reclaim our fate and make meaningful change.” The artist himself says, “the idea of going back, of rewinding is an invitation to reconnect with ourselves; to recover awareness and respect for the earth, which is the ecosystem of which we are part.”
In an interview with Splash and Burn, ESCIF said, “the palm oil problem is a problem in which we are all participating, directly or indirectly. We do not want to realize because we do not want to abandon our status quo, but the consumption of biodiesel, shampoos, chocolates, etc. is also the consumption of the primary forests of Sumatra. I had heard about this before, but it was thanks to Splash and Burn that I paid more attention. When I met Ernest’s SOS intervention, I was very surprised to see how cutting trees could become an environmental action. Then I could understand the damage that these oil plantation were doing to the planet, the devastation of the primary forests, the responsibility that we Europeans had as consumers of products made with palm oil, and the great work that organizations like ICO were doing. The idea of cutting trees to plant trees was very powerful and poetic.”
This artistic intervention comes at a crucial point in this particular rainforest’s history. While the Amazonian rainforest is infamously burning, the Indonesian island of Sumatra has quietly “lost over 40 percent of its forest in the last 2 decades to palm oil, paper pulp and rubber plantations.” As a result, “orangutan, tigers, rhinos, elephants and countless other species” have lost their natural habitat. Splash and Burn says “Sumatran orangutans are Critically Endangered. There are only 14,600 left in the wild, the loss of forest habitat threatens their safety and their future.” Because of this, SOS has worked ceaselessly to reacquire Sumatran land.
ESCIF also completed a series of murals along the way, all “referencing the relationship between consumerism.” True to form, they are somewhat surreal, yet profound. The artist’s bio states that he is know for “making murals, public interventions, video, installations or drawings,” through which he aims “to understand how to experiment [with] life as an open process of knowledge, and knowledge as an open process to experiment life.” As a result of these high-minded ideals, “his work is usually considered in a strange border between popular and conceptual art.”
The short film that will result from all of this creation tells the story of this artist’s endeavors. The press release continues on to explain, “the narrative runs in reverse, rewinding the clock on deforestation to undo the damage caused by the unsustainable production of one of the worlds most versatile commodities. Beyond the industrialization of the land, we end at the beginning, a thriving ecosystem alive with wildlife. The concept mirrors the real world action of the Sumatran Orangutan Society and their partners in reclaiming land on the borders of the Leuser rainforests to rewild them with indigenous trees, expanding the boundaries of one of the most biodiverse places on earth.”
They hope to raise both awareness and money with their latest endeavor. Splash and Burn states that “by reclaiming and replanting forests previously lost to agriculture, we can expand the boundaries of the
Leuser Ecosystem and return the land to its former glory, buzzing with life and supporting the lives and slivelihoods of wildlife and human communities.” You can visit moretrees.info to plant a tree and #rewildsumatra.
