This project, satirically titled Preserved Forest, entailed the indoor construction of an earthen hill upon which were planted numerous nursery-grown trees to approximate a forest cross section of the Amazon. Once the forest was assembled, twelve cubic yards (twenty-five tons) of cement was dumped over the trees, entombing the entire indoor forest in concrete. As forests are razed and roads are paved, the industrialized world’s appetite for a surplus of commodities only escalates. Preserved Forest is an absurdist portrait of the futile act of preservation that competes with today’s uncompromising global market—encapsulating our disregard for the dwindling wildernesses. The environmental crisis we collectively face today can also be read as an existential crisis, where the long-standing division of nature and culture collapses in on itself. As this project is an action, not a representation, the urgency of time is indelibly visible on the sculpture’s surface.

— David Brooks, ARTISTS II