Ash Dieback, Moonlight, 2020
National Museum Wales, from January 2025

National Museum Wales 

Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NP 

Delighted to be exhibiting Ash Dieback, Moonlight, 2020 at National Museum Wales alongside David Nash, Ceri Richards, Barbara Hepworth, Keith Arnatt, Terry Setch, Jessica Warboys et al 

Mike Perry, David Nash, Ceri Richards 
Barbara Hepworth, Terry Setch 
Keith Arnatt, From Howler’s Hill, 1987-88 
Ash Dieback 1, June 3rd, 2020, Ffynnonofi, Pembrokeshire, Wales. C-type print 220cms x 185cms

Artist Text from June 2020 

Most extinctions go unnoticed. But last night the moon lit up the dead branches of the ash trees that overlook my studio here in West Wales creating an eerie scene. It’s a landscape that is becoming familiar all over Britain and a stark reminder of the environmental crisis we are living through. You don’t have to go to the Arctic to see environmental collapse. It’s here on our doorsteps, in our lanes and hedgerows. And it’s happening now. Chalara, or ‘Ash Dieback’, as it’s commonly referred to, is an epidemic that could see the death of up to 95% of the UK’s ash trees. This tragedy ravaging the countryside has taking place in the shadow of the global COVID-19 pandemic, so it is hardly surprising that it is happening largely unnoticed. Species are quietly heading towards extinction while politicians agonize over the economy and getting things ‘back to normal’. But it is ‘business as normal’ that is causing the problems in the first place. Lyme, Ebola, AIDS and now COVID-19 all jumped into human populations as a consequence of habitat destruction and collapsing ecosystems. 

A few years ago Ash Dieback attacked the Ash trees at David Nash’s Ash Dome (1977 – ongoing).  Nash responded by planting 22 oak trees surrounding the dying ash trees, this time to be fetched in a clockwise direction, to create an Oak Dome for the 22nd century. He has re-titled Ash Dome ( 1977-2019).

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