In December 1999, violent storms raged throughout France and we saw thousands of trees knocked down by the sheer force of the winds. Immediate action was taken to clean up the mess, evaluate the cost of the wood lost and put in place a reforesting scheme which will last for several years to come. Whether for ecological or economical reasons, it is obviously for the benefit of man that we take such care with nature. While unable to master it, we build around us a nature which is more or less submissive to the human order. Finally, man and nature stand side by side under the control of society. Man sees himself by looking at artificial nature; he acts on himself as on nature; he constructs himself in the unique goal of serving society.
In this exhibition, I'd like to talk about this subject in gathering pieces of the nature, like tree-trunks. In the room, they are straightened up again after the storms, though they are cut from their roots by a plateau, without neither branches nor leaves. They are just put up, like human beings adapted to the society.

From the text by Shigeko Hirakawa on May 28 2000