Interview with Angela Palmer

So where did the idea for 'Ghost Forest' originate?
'The initial spark came from Andrew Mitchell [founder of rainforest studies organisation Global Canopy Programme], who had seen some of my glass MRI scan sculptures and suggested that I could use the technique to create work with rainforest trees. I was really enthusiastic about the subject but didn't feel that glass sculptures were appropriate. So I did some research into logging which led to the idea of bringing the huge rooted stumps of some logged rainforest trees to London. My research also led to Ghana, which has lost 90 per cent of its primary rainforest over the past 50 years, but because of that has pioneered the enforcement of strict policies to still permit some logging, while also allowing young saplings to grow.'

Why choose Trafalgar Square?
'It was actually something of a happy accident. I wanted the trees to be somewhere prominent and first thought of Parliament Square. But in my proposal, it was mistakenly communicated as Trafalgar Square, which when I then went to look at seemed the perfect location. Nelson's Column is 169 feet tall, but some rainforest trees are higher than 200 feet. I thought of the impact of people looking at the remains of the trees and then looking up to beyond Nelson's hat and realising that every four seconds we are chopping down a football-pitch sized forest of trees of that scale.'

What other rainforest facts can you tell us?
'One of the hardest rainforest trees, the Denya, is used for pilings to sink into harbours to shore them up against the effects of climate change. How ironic is that?'

There must have been a few hurdles along the journey…
'It's absolutely been worth it, but the logistics have been immense. At one point, when the rains wouldn't stop and the vehicles kept getting stuck, it seemed like one of the biggest trees, which is 21 feet across, didn't want to leave the forest. Eventually, we had to call in the local village elders to perform a ceremony to invoke the river goddess, after which the tree left without further difficulty. Although we did have a few incidents later in the city, with a bashed taxi and some damaged electricity cables.'

What about the project's carbon footprint? Could you have put your message across using less energy?
'The carbon cost will be calculated by ClimateCare and off-set on a project to introduce more energy-efficient cooking stoves to Ghana. I have been asked why I didn't make sculptures of the trees. My answer is that I didn't want to create something that looked like a stage set. It was important to me to confront people with the real thing, in its raw state. But any criticism is healthy because it adds to the debate.'

Are you now more activist than artist?
'I'm still firmly in the artist camp. It would be great if the project encouraged discussion about deforestation, but if people see the trees as amazing pieces of sculpture and nothing else, that's also absolutely fine. I don't want to be preachy and I'm not an eco-warrior.'

What will happen to the trees after Copenhagen?
'At the moment I just don't know, so it's all still a massive risk. I would like them to become ambassadors for all the rainforests and to keep travelling around the world, but that would take massive funding and we still need donations to help pay for this project. Another idea would be to put them in the Royal Parks in Greenwich. Ghana is on the Greenwich Meridian line, so the trees could stand there looking 3,000 miles down the line to their homeland.'