Future Assembly: Hedgerow

The UK is crisscrossed with over 500,000 miles of hedgerow, a diverse and semi-natural environment with a vital environmental role. Hedgerows and woodland edge habitats in urban and rural environments provide benefits for a diverse range of wildlife species and plant life including many listed in the uk’s Biodiversity Action Plan. Species both thrive and seek refuge in these wildlife corridors that create habitat connections across landscapes. They also reduce the impact of drought, flooding and soil erosion, decrease wind speed and promote healthy soils that can store more carbon. Left unmanaged they turn into lines of trees.

The iconic hedgerow—a labyrinthine ecosystem of expertly laid and woven plant species used to mark the edges of fields and property lines—serves as an unexpected inspiration and design precedent for our project Rescues Lines (Linee di Salvataggio) an infrastructural network of linear forests, creating longitudinal lines of escape for flora and fauna from the rapidly changing environmental conditions. 

Future Assembly, The “collective exhibition within the Exhibition” in the Central Pavilion, Giardini, curated by Olafur Eliasson and Studio Other Spaces, charts a living collection of attempts by humans to recognise and secure the rights of nature during the 75-year history of the UN Charter and spurs the question, what will the next 75 years bring?

The  Central Pavilion, Giardini, 22 May to 21 November 2021.