Photo. Marek Szczepański

I shall not enter into your heaven points at an uprooting, a cutting off, or a wrenching.
A wall is created from 22 tree roots stacked in six columns. This wall is formed from the organs of plants that usually remain invisible beneath the surface of the earth. However, these were, quite literally, torn out.

Roots nourish, provide water, anchor in the ground, protect the plant from disease. Through their root systems, plants pass between themselves important information and even substances that inhibit the development of disease. Roots are absolutely integral to the life of trees. Trees, in turn, are absolutely integral to our human lives.

In 2017, millions of trees were logged in Poland. Some were from Białowieża Forest, the oldest surviving area of the European primeval forest. Many women (having a particular somatic sensitivity) have reported that this felt as if a violent physical act had been committed against them, as if someone had cut off their legs or hit them. I shall not enter into your heaven seeks to indicate both the scale of ecological disaster and our sense of impotence in the face what has happened and what is still happening. These roots will never come back to life. Perhaps, at least, among their tangle, other organisms will begin their own life cycle.

‘Clearing’ is a word that has become ubiquitous in Polish press reports, describing well the political agenda of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, exemplified, not least, in the destruction of the natural heritage of Poland – those indigenous ecosystems that are home to unique genotypes of plants and animals. And this is exactly what I shall not enter into your heaven is about: the annihilation of roots.