Space

The action Grün | Green is based on identifying plants and stories connected with them that are important for Wrocław dwellers. We are interested in the history and identity of the city as preserved by plants.

Seemingly neutral, nature is a carrier of symbolic meanings that are easy to decipher and interpret. Unlike architectural monuments or inscriptions on walls, plants could easily adapt to the new, post-war reality. This is why trees and shrubs planted by Germans have survived in Wrocław. Oaks that were natural monuments before the war still retain the function, although their patrons may have changed. Trees are witnesses to history and link Breslau with Wrocław.

Trees often serve the role of the background to important collective or individual events. Although we do not always pay attention to them, they can fire up the imagination, affect emotions and serve as the starting point for stories.

The project invites you to enter a game with the conventional requirements for becoming a natural monument. We are not interested in the diameter of the trunk or the age of the trees. What we are looking for is personal stories, family memories or anecdotes.

We encourage you to share your stories about the trees of Wrocław – both those existing and those which are no longer here. By submitting these stories to the website of the project Grün | Green we will endow them with the status of personal monuments of nature.

So far we have managed to discover a story of a poplar tree that entered Wrocław’s artistic scene, a willow whose crown served the role of the setting for a wedding photograph, a chestnut tree which marked the site where German porcelain was buried, and several hornbeams that used to be a children’s playground. Some stories date back to just after the war or the 1997 flood, others are set in more contemporary times. We are waiting for more!

As part of the Lower Silesian Festival of Architecture, a meeting with Karolina Grzywnowicz, the initiator of the project, will be held. It will be an opportunity to find out more details about the action and exchange stories in an informal atmosphere. Those of you who will be unable to come to the meeting can visit the project’s website grun.wrocenter.pl.

The initiative was launched in 2016 as part of Eco Expanded City (wrocenter.pl/eec), a project of the WRO Art Center (wrocenter.pl) held within the programme of the City of the Future / Laboratory Wrocław of European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016. In 2017 the project has been continued under the supervision of the WRO Art Center in cooperation with Greenpeace – Wrocław Local Group.

The project was selected in the competition Open Call DoFA ’17.

Illustration: Private archive of Ewa and Leon Rapacz

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