Silvascope now open at Harewood House Biennial

The Harewood Biennial has returned this March 2022 with Radical Acts: Why Craft Matters. Following 2019’s Useful/Beautiful, curator Hugo Macdonald and the Harewood team have created a new exhibition rooted in craft and craftsmanship.

The 2022 Biennial explores why craft is a ‘radical act’, helping us to address urgent crises in life and society today, and looking to a future where we might live in a more environmentally and socially-responsible way.

We were thrilled to be invited to participate and our radical act is that of cutting trees down. Silvascope is a viewing platform we have designed and made amongst the trees in the woodland that surrounds Harewood House. It is made using wood harvested from trees cut down from the same site, making it a part green wood sructure.

It is a nest-like space where people can watch the transition of woodland during management. We celebrate the felling, and all the brambles and new vegetation that comes with it.

We are planting trees at a rate not seen before in history. The area of woodland in Britain is now back at the level it was in the 14th Century. Despite this, biodiversity within woodlands is declining. How do we save our woodland wildlife? It seems not necessarily by planting more trees - we need to manage our woodland.

We often think a healthy woodland is one that looks pleasing - with tall trees and a welcoming, leaf littered woodland floor, easy to navigate with no brambles or undergrowth. But this kind of woodland is not favourable to most of our woodland wildlife. When we fell some trees in a woodland, and let light in to the woodland floor, other plants, and with them insects, mammals and birds, can thrive. It seems cutting trees can be more useful than just planting them. Only 41% of Britain’s woodlands are managed, so management should be an equal priority to planting.

From our elevated look-out we will help paint a picture of how woodlands need to look over the next few decades in order to save nature within them.

Silvascope is open to the public now as part of Radical Acts at Harewood House until 14th July 2022. Plan your visit and find out more, here.