Wangari Maathai: Africa's Gift to the World Author: Araeen,
Rasheed Source: Third Text, Volume 23, Number 5, September 2009
, pp. 675-678(4) Abstract:In 1982, one of Germany's most
important postwar artists, Joseph Beuys, proposed the planting
of 7000 oak trees as 'a sculpture referring to peoples' life and
their everyday work'. Beuys's 7000 Oaks is one of the most
celebrated artworks in the history of the avant-garde, but did
it achieve what it aimed for? How much tree planting has
occurred in the world as a result of this work, except for
ceremonial 'planting' in the cities of New York, Sydney and
Oslo? If this work has not become 'a regenerative activity', as
Beuys himself wanted in 'peoples' life [and] their everyday
work', should not it be considered a failure? Is this not the
fate of all art, as measured against the dynamics of everyday
creativity? While Beuys's work has remained contained in the
Museum, Wangari Maathai's tree planting, first begun seven years
earlier in Kenya in 1976, has become a glob