In and around the UBA lobby, the artists are presenting their work as a personal discourse between contemporary architecture and atemporal nature. One artist, Cornelia Fischer, has created a meditation centre in an octagonal nomad’s tent that simulates the multiple sensory sensations experienced in a forest and makes us aware how artificial our consciousness has become. Synesthetic associations with light, the rustling of leaves, and tree silhouettes are made by the four-part wall montage by Irmtraud Klug-Berninger. Brigitte Menne’s „Dafne” sculpture plays on the story of the eponymous nymph in Greek mythology who turned herself into a tree to escape from the sun god Apollo. Angelika Summa’s „Parklandschaft” piece made of iron wire and chestnut leaves alludes to the garden culture typical of Saxony-Anhalt and is exposed to weathering. The exhibition’s course, which includes works by Christine Straszewski, Silke Stock, Brigitte Neufeldt, Hedda Wilms and Sevim Bäuerle, explores the cultural significance of trees and seeks to encourage conscientious handling of nature by means of sensual experience.

The exhibition will be opened on 29 May 2008 at 6:00 pm by Dr. Thomas Holzmann, Vice President of UBA. Art historian Charlotte Lindenberg will present the works, and Berlin-based dancer Sarah Menger will perform her „Da - The Tree Piece”.

The exhibit runs until 11 July 2008 at the Federal Environment Agency, Wörlitzer Platz 1, 06844 Dessau-Roßlau, Mondays to Fridays, from 9:00 am to 8:00 pm.  Admission is free.

An experimental sound concert, the „Four Elements” by the NOW! Ensemble, will take place on 25 June 2008 at 7:30 pm.