The Word for World is Forest

The Word for World is Forest

Eli Simon

12"x12"x12"

Providence, RI

2009

The Word for World is Forest is an ambiguous statement concerning our dissociative relationship with nature. It is also about the predatory quality of our symbiotic role in the ecosystem. Our position at the top of the food chain is so extreme and so far out of proportion, that it is largely through commodified resources, products, activities and spaces that we encounter the symbiotic cycles in nature.

As a reactionary activity a unit of nature has been gathered and given to the public. This unit represents a commoditization. The packing and creation of the unit is about the grinding and reducing of raw material into what our society recognizes as a useable increment. In other words, as a society we tend to understand things in units because that is how things are bought and sold.

The perhaps abstract or esoteric phrase “The Word for World is Forest” is the title of an out of print novella by Ursula K. Le Guin. The book is about the colonization and destruction of an agrarian planet and its people. I love this phrase because the term ‘word’ can refer to a singular thing, or unit. In the title, the equation of ‘word’ to ‘world’ suggest the idea of a society as a unit or modularity- A thing that can be acquired, occupied and disposed of . Then by making the terms ‘world’ and ‘forest’ synonymous, the unitization or modularity of nature can be implied. As if to say nature is a resource that can be bought, sold, occupied, and disposed of but not necessarily perpetuated.