Tree Beacon

Unveiled on 8th May 2025 as part of the Skywalk exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale. A smaller version was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition in the CLIMATE room. Tree Beacon extends a long-term inquiry by artist Petroc Sesti into the role of large-scale sculpture within ecological discourse. The project was originally conceived in collaboration with forestry laser scanning scientists conducting carbon mapping in rainforest ecosystems. An early model of the work was presented in London in the presence of Sir David Attenborough, whose 99th birthday now coincided with the public inauguration of the full-scale sculpture in Venice.

Standing nine metres tall, Tree Beacon was selected by Biennale Director Carlo Ratti for inclusion into the Venetian public realm of artworks emblematic of his theme INTELLIGENS. As part of the Skywalk exhibition, an official Collateral Event of Biennale Architettura 2025. The exhibition is presented by Xerjoff, in collaboration with Ocean Space, and curated by Nadja Romain.

The sculpture’s material construction, hand-forged, welded stainless steel surface, shaped and polished without the use of casting, reflects a methodological shift in monument-making, privileging low-carbon processes over conventional casting, energy-intensive approaches. This fabrication strategy is both technically and symbolically central to the work, positioning Tree Beacon as a proposition for new modes of sustainable sculptural production.

Engaging with current discourse on art’s capacity to intersect with scientific research and climate-critical infrastructures, Tree Beacon addresses the aesthetic and symbolic potential of sculpture to mediate complex environmental narratives, the sculptures reflective surface invites the viewer into study its natural form.

Developed in dialogue with rainforest scientists studying carbon sequestration in buttress root networks, the work invites reflection on how form can communicate ecological function and urgency.

Rather than illustrating nature, Tree Beacon participates in an expanded field of interdisciplinary practice that foregrounds collaboration as a central mode of cultural production. It stands not as a monument to nature, but as an index of artistic and scientific exchange—interrogating how cultural institutions and public art might contribute to planetary narratives and modes of repair.

Following its presentation in Venice, Tree Beacon will be installed in Belém, Brazil, at the COP30 Climate Conference, where it will function as both a sculptural presence and a discursive object within an international policy and climate context.