Siberian taiga planting scheme for Sheffield, 2005
Slide and sound installation with framed email and book

This work exists only as a proposal. This proposal is best described in the following email:

From: "Heather & Ivan Morison" <morison@globalsurvey.org>
Date: 20 October 2005 10:45:32 BDT
To: <phil.abbott@sheffield.gov.uk>
Subject: Siberian taiga planting scheme for Sheffield
Dear Phil Abbott, Team Manager, Forward and Area Planning, Sheffield City Council,

We would like propose the planting of Siberian taiga on the area of waste ground that exists on the south-west corner of the intersection of Manor Oaks Place and Manor Oaks Road in the Wybourn area of Sheffield.
In order to explain this proposal we must go back two years to when we were studying at Novosibirsk University in Siberia, Russia. One afternoon, on a visit to the Central Siberian Botanical Gardens and Botanical Institute, we met Professor Nicolai Lashchinsky. The Professor is a member of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, and that afternoon he spoke passionately to us about the Russian taiga, his area of scientific expertise. To explain taiga it is easiest to quote the Professor from that afternoon.
'The most part of Siberian forest is well known as taiga. Taiga is a synonym of boreal forest. What are the main features of boreal forest? Thick moss layer and some lichens. The main dominant trees are Siberian spruce, Siberian fir and the legendary Siberian cedar, or in a strict sense Siberian pine. Living in the taiga is cold and lonely. Coldness and food shortages make things very difficult.'
We were intrigued and set about organising an expedition to these mysterious forests. Not many weeks later we were experiencing taiga first hand in the Kuznetsky Alatau Zapovednik, located along the eastern border of the Kemerovo Oblast in Western Siberia. In general we only every read science fiction but on this particular trip we happened to be reading a 1970 Penguin edition of George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier. It is two thirds of the way down page 95 of this particular edition that taiga and Sheffield first collided in our minds. The best way to explain would be to quote the passage that struck us. Orwell, for the previous half page has been talking about Sheffield, detailing why he found it particularly disagreeable.
'One scene especially lingers in my mind. A frightful patch of waste ground (somehow, up there, a patch of waste ground attains a squalor that would be impossible even in London) trampled bare of grass and littered with newspapers and old saucepans.'
There couldn't have been a greater contrast between the grim desolate industrial scene that Orwell was describing than with the rich natural ecosystem of the ancient forests that we were in. Yet, at the same time, these two distant environments shared a certain inhospitable harshness. The two places for us seemed to have some kind of kinship. At that point, deep in the primeval forest, we decided that we must carefully survey an area of taiga and draw up a plan of it, which in the future could be used as a planting scheme to plant Siberian taiga on an area of waste ground in Sheffield that matched up to Orwell's own 'frightful patch of waste ground.' It has taken us some time locate the correct site, but we have now found it and are contacting you for Sheffield City Council's approval to move ahead with our endeavour.
Kuznetsky Alatau taiga forest is dominated by Siberian fir but in the area we surveyed were also Siberian pine, Siberian stone pine, Siberian spruce, Siberian larch and Dahurian larch; all of these are to be planted on the selected area of waste ground in Sheffield. The under story of the forest is made up of Dwarf birch, juniper, bilberry, honeysuckle, horse hair, Spleenwort ferns, mosses and lichens growing between large boulders. Small insects such as the Siberian moth, Black-veined White butterfly, Larch Bud midge and Black Fir Sawyer beetle will feed on the trees, and these will provide food for birds such as the Three-toed woodpecker and the Black woodpecker. The yellowhammer, Red crossbill, Scarlet rosefinch, Spotted nutcracker and Siberian rubythroat will make the taiga their home, whilst migrating birds such as the Black stork, Berwick's swan and Hooded crane will rest here each year. Golden eagle, osprey and peregrine falcon will be attracted by the Siberian chipmunks, Long-tailed Ground squirrels and numerous species of voles, shrews and other small rodents that will provide a food base for them. This diversity of rodents and small birds will also provide for the sable, ermine and wolverine that are all present in the taiga. Musk deer will prefer lichens and other vegetation near the ground, while moose will browse higher up on young twigs in the forest. Lynx will chase brown hares, wolves will hunt for Siberian roe deer, and Brown bears will find refuge here feeding on game and bilberries. It will take many years for this proposed patch of taiga in Sheffield to reach maturity and the above mentioned level of diversity, but given time it will provide a resource for the local community and a source of contemplation and wonder for many thousands of years to come.
We have prepared an audio visual presentation consisting of slides of the selected site combined with field sound recordings made at the survey area in Kuznetsky Alatau Zapovednik in Western Siberia. The sounds are really very evocative of the ancient boreal forest, and help one to imagine an area of taiga replacing the waste ground in the slides. We would be delighted to present these to you and your team at any future forward planning meetings, along with a diagram of our planting scheme.

Yours sincerely,

Heather & Ivan Morison

When installed the email is framed alongside a copy of The Road to Wigan Pier. On its title page is a sketched planting scheme of Siberian taiga. The email refers to an audio visual presentation of slides of a Sheffield wasteground and sounds from the Siberian taiga. These elements are also presented when the work is installed. A version of the soundtrack to Siberian taiga planting scheme for Sheffield can be listened to online by clicking here (for help about how to listen click here). Images from the installed work can be seen below.