In 2023 Revival salvaged five large Cypress Macrocarpa trees from Box Hill Cemetery in Melbourne. The trees were growing within one metre from adjacent graves and had become unsafe; their roots sharing the soil with departed members of our community.
It’s this paradigm of resource being born out of the space set aside for death that inspired the 100 Circles initiative. Using this resource, Revival has milled the smaller logs to create sections of timber appropriate to manufacture 100 timber urns. Revival has designed the urn to involve zero glue or mechanical fixing. A seed of a Golden Wattle (Australia’s national tree) is housed within the lid of each urn. When buried, the urn will completely decompose and the cremated ashes will ultimately give life to a new tree. The beginning of another circle of death into new life.
Each urn will be provided with half a cup of activated charcoal (to help neutralise the PH levels of cremated remains) This charcoal is from another Revival salvage mission: a large timber sculpture in Docklands which was vandalised (by fire) and which they salvaged in 2022.
Each of the 100 urns are available for purchase with each sale will be donated to Indigenous groups that manage forests after fires. Each new custodian of the urns will be asked to provide some words which explain why they connected with this concept. These 100 stories are subsequently displayed in the exhibition.
This exhibition is held at Revival’s Urban Tree Recovery space, which is the only inner-city timber mill and kiln in Australia. The 100 urns and the notes from each new custodian will be accompanied by video and images of the tree removal process at Box Hill Cemetery. Working notes and research are also displayed. Environmental impact data will be on display, such as volumes of sequestered carbon in the trees.
