Conversations with trees | Work-in-progress

Krista Burāne will read letters from Linden trees in Riga, Latvia, to the trees at Wiibroe Plads.

The place, Krista has selected for this is not a random selection:

From Wiibroe Plads, there is a panoramic view of Kongekajen, where the biofuels, in terms of wood chips, that Forsyning Helsingør uses as fuel for our heating systems, is landed. 37 % of Denmark’s biofuel comes from Latvia and Estonia.

As far as we in Denmark are concerned, this is a sustainable heating ressource.

However, Krista Burāne points out, in Latvia, legal amendments have been made on forest cutting, that enforces the ability to forest cutting, rather than protecting the country’s biologically diverse and old forests.

In legal texts in Latvia, trees are regarded solely as cubic meters that bring economic benefit, and as such they are given a relatively high price but little value. The consequence of such an attitude is the very poor and endangered state of nature’s health in Latvia, as evidenced by the data of the Natural Register.

The letters from the Latvian trees were written during a participatory performance, Krista created earlier this May in Riga, Latvia, in the linden avenue of Brīvibas (Freedom) street in front of the Cabinet of Ministers.

More than 130 participants gathered by the 136 linden trees in the avenue, each selecting a tree to devote an hour of their time and attention to the trees, as a public gesture that expresses interest and care for the life of a tree; reading and playing music to them, dancing with them and engaging in conversations.

After interacting with the trees, each participant then recorded the possible reactions and responses of the tree in a letter from the tree. At the end, all the participants branched off in a chain in front of the Cabinet of Ministers in Riga, reminding of The Baltic Way*, only this time in the name of the permanence of nature.

In Helsingør too, Conversations with trees, will be participatory event: everyone is welcome to bring a text, you would like to read for 10 minutes to the trees. An invitation to join Burāne , as she reads the greetings and messages from from the Latvian Linden trees to their Danish relatives.

Linden tree letter from Riga

”I have experienced a lot, but there is little I would want to highlight because this day is more special to me than anything I have experienced so far. You have come directly to me, you just came, you didn’t walk past or through, you are not raking leaves, mowing the grass, or cutting branches – you came to me just like that, to talk, to listen, to say thank you, and to hug. I am happy right now. I truly know what love is, I have experienced it. I have many wounds and scars that are still healing, but this day allows most of my scars, most of the injustices, to heal. Now I will again wait in silence, loving, dreaming, and listening, but above all, believing with hope that someone might come to me just like that.”

*The Baltic Way

or Baltic Chain was a peaceful political demonstration that occurred on 23 August 1989. Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain spanning 690 kilometres across the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which at the time were occupied and annexed by the USSR and had a combined population of approximately eight million.[2] The central government in Moscow considered the three Baltic countries constituent republics of the Soviet Union.