The death of the Warsaw Palm
Collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art amplifies the UN’s climate warnings.
The most popular public art piece in Poland changed its meaning after transforming overnight for the UN World Environment Day. Distilled into an arresting artwork, this environmental message was broadcast by every major news outlet in Poland and hundreds globally. It happened entirely through earned media.
Warsaw’s plastic palm tree is the largest-scale modern art piece in Poland. It has towered over the city centre since 2002, becoming a meeting point and a haven of free speech. On World Environment Day, I killed it, replacing its green but artificial leaves with real but dead ones, then let Poland guess why and how it could have withered.
Poland has a depressing 36 out of the 50 most polluted cities in the EU, so environmental actions are badly needed. I used the sudden death of the palm tree as a single, central gesture to grab people's imagination. Taking their beloved landmark away made people feel the change in themselves, rather than listening to distant climate news: 13 500 people registered online eco-declarations for individual actions to help the environment.
An article in the New York Times said: "Among those praising the idea of 'killing' the tree as a way of warning against the effects of climate change Friday was Ola Kania with her 4-year-old son Jas. 'I pointed out the tree to my child and said that everything will look this way if people don't take better care of the planet,' she said.”
The death of the Warsaw Palm
Collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art amplifies the UN’s climate warnings.
The most popular public art piece in Poland changed its meaning after transforming overnight for the UN World Environment Day. Distilled into an arresting artwork, this environmental message was broadcast by every major news outlet in Poland and hundreds globally. It happened entirely through earned media.
Warsaw’s plastic palm tree is the largest-scale modern art piece in Poland. It has towered over the city centre since 2002, becoming a meeting point and a haven of free speech. On World Environment Day, I killed it, replacing its green but artificial leaves with real but dead ones, then let Poland guess why and how it could have withered.
Poland has a depressing 36 out of the 50 most polluted cities in the EU, so environmental actions are badly needed. I used the sudden death of the palm tree as a single, central gesture to grab people's imagination. Taking their beloved landmark away made people feel the change in themselves, rather than listening to distant climate news: 13 500 people registered online eco-declarations for individual actions to help the environment.
An article in the New York Times said: "Among those praising the idea of 'killing' the tree as a way of warning against the effects of climate change Friday was Ola Kania with her 4-year-old son Jas. 'I pointed out the tree to my child and said that everything will look this way if people don't take better care of the planet,' she said.”
