Driftwood Conference Table Draws Attention To Environmental Issues

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Feb 15th 2011 at 2:01AM

A Table from the Sea's Edge from Neon Otter on Vimeo.
A large conference table and 12 chairs isn't usually considered art but A Table from the Sea's Edge by Silas Birtwistle isn't just any table. The British furniture maker and artist Silas Birtwistle created the table from driftwood gathered from Belize, Vancouver Island, Tanzania and Borneo. The exhibit, now on display at the World Museum in Liverpool, England, is meant to promote conservation of the world's seas, oceans and forests. Birtwistle gathered his wood with help from indigenous communities and the World Wildlife Fund as well as other organizations.

Various people have sat at the table including Harrison Ford and politicians Tony Blair and Boris Johnson. The piece will tour the globe and has already made an appearance at the United Nations meeting on Biodiversity at Nagoya Japan in 2010. The furniture is put together using mortise and tenon construction. In the video above, Birtwistle explains that he wanted to create the piece for people to be able to sit down and talk and that the furniture itself has its own stories to tell, comprised of the places that is has been in and even the animals that have been in contact with the wood.

Tags: biodiversity, driftwood, environment, liverpool, museum exhibit, silas birtwhistle