Marguerite Humeau summons the forest back to life in Norway

Marguerite Humeau has conceived a work of extraordinary ambition for Kistefos in Jevnaker, Norway: a living artwork that unfolds through the forest along the Randselva river, where sculpture and ecology intertwine in a landscape designed for transformation and renewal. ‘The Garden of Resuscitation’, opening in 2026, does not simply sit within the woodland but belongs to it, growing and shifting as the seasons turn.

The work emerges as a conversation between the visible and the hidden. A monumental sculpture of a resuscitated spruce tree rises from the forest floor, its form recomposed with elements of species that live in parasitic and symbiotic relationships with it: the intricate dependencies that sustain life. Surrounding it, a garden cultivates plants and fungi, while benches cast from paper pulp and leaves offer visitors a place to sit and witness what unfolds before them. The materials themselves speak to renewal and decomposition, to the cycles through which forests persist.

What distinguishes this work is its commitment to ritual and time. Glass vessels contain an elixir made from plants grown as part of the artwork, conceived as the essence of the resuscitated tree itself. Each year, this elixir will be prepared anew, its recipe and accompanying rituals evolving with the seasons and the forest’s own rhythms. Visitors do not simply observe a finished object but participate in a work that will never be complete, that will move and alter according to the logic of the living world.

Humeau’s practice has long engaged with the botanical and the ceremonial, with how we might honour and commune with the natural world. Here, at Kistefos, that inquiry finds its most expansive form: an entire forest becomes the canvas, and time itself becomes the medium. ‘The Garden of Resuscitation’ opens to the public at Kistefos in 2026.

Imagery courtesy of White Cube (@whitecube).