Shadow Curriculum was a two-year project in which the artists engaged with the staff and students of Highshore School, a mixed special-needs secondary school in south London. They worked closely together to transform a thirty-four-metre-high Douglas fir tree into a sculpture for the school’s new premises, which opened in June 2014. Work on the project began the previous year, when the school was planning its move to the new site. The period of transition presented the opportunity for the artists to investigate ideas around rootedness and transformation, as well as to engage explicitly in a dialogue about redefining the limitations of where, and how, it is possible for artists to work.

They proposed a bold idea to bring a tree to stand within the school, to act not only as a distraction for its users, but also as an agitating focus for making, playing, and debate about the future. They had been inspired by the community tree-felling traditions of southern Italy, where villagers participate in ritualistic celebrations of the tree as a symbol of renewal. Their idea held particular resonance for Highshore students and staff, who would be leaving behind a much-loved weeping willow in the playground of their old school.

In the summer of 2013, the artists took 150 students and teachers on a field trip to woodland in Sussex to watch the tree being felled. As the great specimen fell, the audience cried in unison the obligatory ‘Timber!’ After being sawn into three pieces and transported to the playground of the old school, the tree was carved and tarred black over the course of a year. Meanwhile, the artists held workshops in which students made drawings of the tree-felling and personalized flags with which to decorate the tree as it was pulled by horse-drawn carts to the school’s new location, where it was reassembled and erected in the playground. Having been worked on collectively in the earlier school yard before being installed in the new one, the tree provided a metaphorical bridge between the two sites and marked the change positively, as well as offering physical and imaginative material for the school’s curriculum.

While the work itself stood within Highshore’s grounds, passers-by could peer up and see the towering Lightning Tree, as the Morisons called it, from the street. According to the artists, its name is a nod to a type of tree that grows in the Amazon, taller than any other, which acts as a guiding landmark or natural lighthouse for people navigating the rivers.

This text tells the story of a two-year exchange between artists Heather and Ivan Morison, and students and teachers from Highshore School, a mixed needs special secondary school in south London. The central character of this story is a 34m high Douglas fir tree, which would be felled from a forest and brought to live with the school, as an agitating focus for making, playing and debate about the future. The film and artefacts on display are records of the tree’s journey from Sussex woodland to Peckham, where it provided physical and imaginative material for the school to weave through its curriculum.

Work began in 2013, when Highshore was on the verge of major change, with a move to a new school site planned for the following year. Accompanying this daunting period of transition, Heather and Ivan Morison collaborated with the art department and the wider school to realise their bold idea, inspired by the community tree-felling traditions of southern Italy, where villagers participate in ritualistic celebrations of the tree as a symbol of renewal. Their idea held particular resonance for Highshore students and staff, who would be leaving behind a much-loved weeping willow in the playground of their old school.

A commissioned film witnesses key milestones in the project: the spectacular tree-felling presided over by 150 pupils and teachers; the transportation of the tree to Highshore; the carving and painting of the bark and the final movement of the work on horse-drawn carts for installation at the new school site where it stands today. While the work itself is contained within Highshore’s grounds, passers-by can peer up and see the towering Lightning Tree from the street. According to the artists, its name is a nod to a type of tree that grows in the Amazon, taller than any other, which acts as a guiding landmark, or natural lighthouse for people navigating the rivers.

This public commission is part of a rich history of works in art, design and literature, which take the tree as a potent metaphor for life, growth and learning. From the Tree of Life motif of the Arts and Crafts movement, to more contemporary examples by the likes of Joseph Beuys and Gustav Metzger, tree imagery has long been associated with utopian ideals and calls for social change. For Shadow Curriculum, the tree is a catalyst for an ambitious venture and a generator for creative pedagogies, which are central to Highshore’s own curriculum, yet can be undervalued in the wider secondary school system.

Under the custodianship of Highshore School, the curious totem-like tree, and the story of its appearance, may eventually become part of school folklore. For now it stands as a reminder of a period of transition and change, and signifies a flag in the ground for the school community, as they claim the new site as their own.

An overview of Shadow Curriculum by Nicola Sim, doctoral researcher, Tate/The University of Nottingham.

Photographers’ credits       


All’s Well that Ends_ Ivan Morison