Anna Rapp-Taylor

What Remains of Us and Them? portrays the destruction that native forest logging delivers upon the biosphere and ultimately on our own bodies. 

Tasmania’s native forests are biodiversity hotspots and some of the most carbon dense forests on Earth. These forests help sustain us, and when they are destroyed we forever lose an invaluable asset. I have knitted the image of Tasmanian Oak trees into a garment and subjected it to destruction, rendering it useless as a protective and life-sustaining layer. Each valuable, inextricably linked stitch is gone, and what once was will never be again. 

Less than 1% of the biomass of logged native forest ends up as usable timber material, with up to 60% left to rot or burn on the former forest floor. As such, 1% of the yarn from the destroyed knitting has been fashioned into a new garment, while the rest is laid to waste.

80% of the artist's proceeds from the sale of this work will be put towards protecting Australian native forests.