Standing Tall is a creative response to the loss of over 112 trees in one of Reading’s few green lungs.
A collaboration between artist, filmmaker and artistic director of Outrider Anthems. Jennifer Leach and eco-scenographer and Outrider Anthems associate, Andrea Carr.
In April 2022, Reading Borough Council granted planning permission – on the third time of asking – for a vast consortium of houses to be built on a much used, loved and valued green space.
They say that in time we will forget. We will become accustomed to the new environment. No. We learn to endure. We do not forget.
The community were distressed and incandescent, but there is nothing that can be done now to halt the development. However, Outrider Anthems organised a community intervention to stand in solidarity with the 112 numbered trees, and countless smaller others, that are to be felled.
We gently bound each doomed tree with a tie of white muslin, thus making visible what the developers and Reading Borough Council wish to keep invisible: a mutual community of powerful trees and all their interconnected ecosystems, earmarked for destruction. Acting with integrity and clarity of spirit in these times has great presence.
