White Wood

28/05/2016

02/09/2021

Caroline Wendling

Current Projects

White Wood

Even as we look to the past in commemoration, creating a monument and a symbol that gestures towards times, lives and events that have gone on before, it is to the future that this wood speaks.
Alan Macpherson

The White Wood is a living monument to peace, which will develop over three hundred years. As a site of reflection, it was created by the community of Huntly and artist Caroline Wendling, with oaks from Germany, stones from France and Scottish soil. Along with forty nine oaks, grown from acorns from Joseph Beuys' 7000 Oaks in Kassel, the wood is made up of one thousand seven hundred native trees, shrubs and wild flowers, all of which displays an element of white, the colour of peace.

While it was conceived in response to the centenary of the start of WW1 and symbolically represents peace between nations, the ideas surrounding the wood will continue to grow with the trees. As the oaks take three hundred years to grow, three hundred years to mature and three hundred years to die, the legacy of the wood greatly surpasses us individuals and any future we can imagine. To pass on this story we are engaging artists from all disciplines and the local community to develop the wood as a space for activities, inspiration and contemplation.

In 2020 Caroline returned to Deveron Projects to create a waymarked route to the White Wood. Although regularly used by walkers, Caroline wanted to cement the route for multiple generations to come, in the form of beautiful bronze waymarkers. Working closely with the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Caroline designed a waymarker that symbolised the White Wood's story, inviting the communities of Huntly into the making process through a public bronze pour and collaborations with students at The Gordon Schools. The waymarkers are dotted along the circular route created from Huntly train station to the White Wood, returning along the banks of the River Deveron. A new map is being created and the walk will be featured on Huntly Development Trust's new directory of local routes.