The Blue Trees – Squamish
Konstantin Dimopoulos, Australia
Description
Title: The Blue Trees – Squamish
Artist: Konstantin Dimopoulos (b. 1954, Egypt)
Medium: 30 trees and blue pigment (environmental performance art)
Dimensions: variable
Locations: two installations: (1) along Mamquam Road, adjacent to Coast Mountain Academy, on the campus of Quest University (24 trees) and (2) Waterfront Park at Loggers Lane and Victoria Street (grove of 6 Alder trees)
The Blue Trees is a Vancouver Biennale initiative launched during the 2009 – 2011 exhibition that has gone on to become an international award-winning public-art installation created in over 14 cities across the world. This art installation brings environmental consciousness and social action together through community participation. Pigmenting trees blue, a colour not naturally associated with trees, temporarily transforms a familiar urban landscape. Trees are largely invisible in our daily lives, and the blue colour is a means of altering perception, a powerful stimulant used to raise social consciousness about the role of trees as the lungs of the world.
These two separate installations were created with the assistance of Coast Mountain Academy students and volunteers from Quest University and the local community.
This environmental art project has inspired another artwork, an orchestral piece entitled Biennale Snapshots – A Composition In 5 Movements by Vivian Fung.
Awards
The Blue Trees project was selected as a finalist from 1,022 entries for the Danish Index Design Awards, the largest design award in the world, in 2013.
Konstantin Dimopoulos was the winner of the artist category for the Climate Week Awards: 2014.
The Blue Trees was named as one of the Top 100 Activism Trends of 2012 for ideas that change the world.
Press
Art Institute Videos
Students from Art Institute Vancouver made videos to accompany the Blue Trees projects. Watch them all here