Lars Baggenstos | Royalty

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Lars Baggenstos, “Royalty,” 2024

(courtesy of the Gallery)

The project Royalty reflects on the industrial logging practices of British Columbia. These practices fuel many controversies and cause many confrontations between the different groups of citizens in BC and around the world. Having spent many hours and days in the field as a forestry surveyor I know those practices well and I have witnessed their impact on the landscape and surrounding environment.

In my practice as a sculptor my main material or medium is wood. Which I source from what the logging industry leaves in the backcountry ( I gather the wood from ditches, clear cuts, slash and burn piles). I'm acutely aware how necessary a flourishing forest industry is for BC and its inhabitants and for the rest of the country. Lumber for construction, wood fibre which is converted into electricity, fuels, plastics, solvents and lubricants. Trees and their wood are the material of the past, present and future.

But still something seems horribly wrong in this equation. The rate and the way of how trees and forests are consumed and harvested. Feels like a frantic and headless race.

This is what my project focuses on. The headless consumption of the last stands of old growth. Especially the majestic and mighty stands of giant trees that tower above us and make us feel humble when we wander amongst them. They are the true royalty of trees. I stumbled over the word royalty with a very different connotation during my work as a forestry surveyor.

Please read the following description of the term crown timber. Crown timber means timber located on Crown or public land and includes timber in respect of which the Crown may demand and receive a royalty. In my mind it is a key term. The word crown is heavily laden with meaning. Good and bad. Amongst them is Stewardship, guardian, caretaker, leader etc. where is the leadership in the forest industry? The leadership focuses solely on profit, not on long lasting environmental management. Stewardship or the lack thereof is visible - especially from the birdseye's perspective. A checkerboard pattern of clear cuts. The backcountry of BC is to a high percentage degraded to a simple but giant tree farm. Fast growing species of trees are planted by the thousands in same age classes and monocultures (for example the pine forests of the Cariboo Region). Which creates weak forest systems and not the healthy multi story forest we see in areas where nature is left on its own or in carefully managed forest where trees are selectively logged. It strikes me as tragic that the only meaning the word royalty has in the description above is in financial profits.The Sculptures of the series Royalty questions these practices.

The up to seven foot tree trunks are shaped with chainsaws and chisels into the human figure. Just one crucial part is missing: the head. Fragile and headless they stand in the public space. As if they lost their senses somewhere. And in a desperate measure these wooden bodies try to replace the void between their shoulders with up rooted tree stumps, the trash from clear cuts. These ill fitting crowns question the human as the pinnacle of evolution. The sculptures are depending on the size of log between one foot and max. seven feet tall including the plinth out of wood and steel. The sculptures weigh roughly between 50lbs or 440lbs.