The disappearance and reappearance of the gilded elm
After being ravaged by the disease carrying bark beetle, one of the Elm twins of Preston Park was uprooted and removed from site in order to protect its twin from exposure. Whilst the elm could not be saved, it soon returned to the park, albeit in new form. The disappearance of this elm was both upsetting and ecologically troublesome, with ongoing and tiresome efforts to preserve this threatened species. Stripping the diseased bark, preserving the trunk and gilding the interior, artist Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva made possible the reappearance of the elm, which had been intended to be incinerated by the council.
Reemerging as an art object, the gilded elm blurs the boundaries between the preservation of art and the preservation of ‘nature’. While the living tree could not be preserved, the preservation of it as an art object does not merely reduce it to some invulnerable artefact, enclosed and encased, away from the threat of natural forces, but importantly, draws attention to its very vulnerability as a once living being. The gilded interior accentuates this vulnerability by preserving the markings made by the elm beetle. Rather than being a palimpsest, clearing the slate for novel markings, the markings, or artwork if you will, of the beetle have been highlighted so delicately by Vasileva. As Derrida says, in response to Kant's distinction between art and nature, that art is inevitably contaminated by the nature it wishes to relinquish, as he refers to the 'cells of wax regularly constructed' by bees, a buzzing that will not allow for such fine tuned distinctions.
In turn, what had potentially engendered feelings of disgust and dismay soon unfolded into something beautiful. The markings of the beetle, alongside the damage caused to the tree by the pathogenic fungus it carries, may well have been perceived as ugly processes, too pernicious to engender aesthetic appreciation. Yet, without minimising the remorse elicited by the death of a well respected tree, the gilded elm reminds us of the unfolding nature of natural beauty. In a snapshot, disease and death are phenomena that are perhaps perceptually and indeed aesthetically challenging and yet, with the help of artistic accentuation, beauty can begin to reemerge out of the unfolding dynamic of vulnerability.
Like the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, which consists in repairing broken pottery with adhesives mixed with gold, the preservation of the gilded elm serves to highlight the vulnerability of living beings, rather than coat over this vulnerability as a means of concealing its traumas. Aesthetic engagement with the gilded elm may well therefore provoke feelings of ambivalence; it stands as a reminder of what once was, as it faces its living twin, who invites one to step inside its hollow trunk and glare at the polyporus fungi and insects that cling to its living body. Yet, its gilded twin is not a mere copy, an artefact framed in a mini gallery enclosed by a fence, but still wears its vulnerability on its sleeve. It is not a perfected, plastic version of an endangered tree, but remains just as vulnerable in its preservation.