The 413x4 project organizes a cultural and charity event meant to support the planting of trees and increase public awareness on Romania's deforestation. An exhibition of sculptures using the bodies of cherry trees which were cut down four years ago will be on display at the Van Gogh cafe in the Lipscani area of Bucharest tonight (June 3rd) at 19,00 hours.

“In year 2006 we witnessed a large cherry orchard being destroyed on the outskirts of Bucharest. Unable to save the living trees, we collected the abandoned trunks thinking to integrate them into an art manifesto. Two hundred years ago, three quarters of the surface area of Romania was forested. By 1990, only a third remained. In the last twenty years, a tenth of Romania’s remaining forests have been destroyed. In Bucharest, one million trees have been cut down in recent decades,” write the promoters of the project, architect Serban Sturdza and sculptor Virgil Scripcariu. “We intend to create a number of exhibition events at key points of maximum visibility around the city. We thereby hope to awaken public awareness and to give a polemical incentive to the public institutions responsible for increasing the number of trees in the urban space and forestation in general,” they say.

The sculptures will be on sale tonight. The funds raised from the sale will be dedicated to planting more trees.