Air

Katie Paterson Born 1981, Glasgow, Scotland Lives and works Fife, Scotland Katie Paterson’s To Burn, Forest, Fire 2021 unfurls gradually via the wafting aromas of incense, a highly sensory experience that transports us to the imagined extremes of evolutionary time. In the gallery space, two small incense sticks — an acid green one labelled ‘First Forest’ and a darker green one designated ‘Last Forest’ — stand on a tray in a recessed niche, marking either end of a vast epoch. Each morning, the fragrance embalmed in these incense sticks is released during a ceremonial offering, which takes place by the Bodhi tree at the entrance to GOMA. As part of this formality, a bell rings, a text explaining the artist’s intention is read, and those present are invited to experience the rich, olfactory evocations of both the first-ever forest on Earth and the last-ever forest in the age of climate crisis. As the incense burns, its smoky articulations heighten our awareness of ecologies and environments currently imperilled. Raising the spectre of their extinction, Paterson encourages us to reflect on how our actions have shaped and hastened this threat. Paterson worked with a global team of researchers to understand the ecological composition and profile of each fictitious forest, drawing on detailed scientific knowledge about the long-term evolution of life on Earth. Together with geologists, biologists and ecologists, she arrived at an imagined character for the first primeval forest by taking her cue from a petrified North American forest dating to the middle of the Devonian period, some 385 million years ago. 1 Captured and concentrated in a bespoke incense stick by the renowned Japanese atelier Shoyeido, the scent of ‘First Forest’ is described by the artist as one of ‘swampy decay’. 2 Its fragrance notes are shaped by the prehistoric soil’s cultivation of ferns, algae, fungi and early invertebrate insect life, but not yet sweet-smelling flowers or modern-day vegetation. 1 The artist elaborates: ‘The Earth’s first forest grew in modern-day Cairo, New York State . . . It was discovered through the fossilised root systems containing three types of ancient plant species, including Archaeopteris, which had well-developed roots, a large trunk and branches with leaves. What would it have been like, this forest? A shady place of greens and browns, certainly, but probably with little other colour — the evolution of flowers was still a long way into the future. A quiet place, probably — not quite bereft of animal life, for small millipedes, mites, springtails, crustaceans and other invertebrates had already moved onto land with the plants’. See Katie Paterson, To Burn, Forest, Fire , <to-burn-forest-fire. com>, viewed July 2022. 2 Paterson, To Burn, Forest, Fire . Katie Paterson / To Burn, Forest, Fire (detail) 2021 111 Shared