A selection of images from the continuing collection of images of painted marks on trees.

Marking Time is a collection, currently standing at approximately 480 photographs, of painted marks on trees documented between 1992 and 2007 in Scotland, England, Germany, Belgium, Estonia, Lithuania, Spain, France , Denmark , Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Romania and Poland.

Mostly the marks signify the intentions of people for purposes of medication, correction, protection, destruction or convenience, but increasingly trees also carry social and territorial graffiti.

This project visually intrigues by drawing attention to a largely unnoticed practice, but it also leads into the vital contemporary debate about our relationship with the natural world.

    In no other way do we so publicly and
    graphically declare our attitudes and
    intentions towards nature than in our
    habit of marking trees.

    Su Grierson July 2002

Publication : Marking Time. Published by LiveLine
Projects 2002   44 pages.   40 full colour images.

Marking Time installation