Agnes Denes’ ‘Tree Mountain’ is a monumental earthwork in Finland – over a thousand feet long and hundreds of feet wide – created to restore land devastated by mining.
She worked with 11,000 people from around the world to plant 11,000 pine trees in an intricate formation based on the golden ratio. Each planter received an inheritable certificate – valid for 20 generations – naming them and their descendants as custodians of their tree.
Tree Mountain measuring 420 meters long, 270 meters wide, 38 meters high is the largest monument on earth that is international in scope, unparalleled in duration, and not dedicated to the human ego, but to benefit future generations with a meaningful legacy, eventually creating a virgin forest.
The development of Tree Mountain took 14 years from the original design concept in 1982, to its commissioning by the Finnish government at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, to its completion in 1996 in middle Finland. A mountain needed to be built to design specifications, which by itself took over four years and was the restitution work of a mine that had destroyed the land through resource extraction. The process of bioremediation restores the land from resource extraction use to one in harmony with nature, in this case, the creation of a virgin forest. The planting of trees holds the land from erosion, enhances oxygen production and provides home for wildlife. This takes time and it is one of the reasons why Tree Mountain must remain undisturbed for centuries. The certificate the planters received are numbered and reach 400 years into the future as it takes that long for the ecosystem to establish itself. It is an inheritable document that connects the eleven thousand planters and their descendents reaching into millions, connected by their trees. This family is the original green generation, the term that became so popular recently in people's terminology. This family from around the world are proud custodians of the trees that bear their names and grow through the centuries to a lush manmade virgin forest. Tree Mountain is a collaborative work, from its intricate landscaping and forestry to the funding and contractual agreements for its strange, unheard-of land-use of four centuries. The collaboration expands as eleven thousand people come together to plant the trees that bear their names and remain their property through succeeding generations. The trees can change ownership so that people can leave their tree to their heirs, or transfer it by other means, even be buried under it, but Tree Mountain itself can never be owned or sold, nor can the trees be moved from the forest.
The trees are made by nature, the mathematical positioning created by the human intellect to form a true alliance of man and nature.
