Listen — Stanley Park

Following the windstorm that devastated Stanley Park in 2006, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation commissioned a series of environmental artworks in response. In partnership with the environmental artist Peter von Tiesenhausen, John Hemsworth set out to restore the remains of a fallen 700-year-old cedar that had lain along one of the park's paths.

Over two years, the team tracked down segments of the tree that had been removed and repurposed them into a solid cedar orb, cradled within a charred, hollow cedar seed. Titled "Listen," the finished piece reflects on birth, death, and rebirth, of ourselves and of the environment around us. It remains along Lovers Walk as a quiet, semi-permanent meditation on loss, renewal, and our relationship with the natural world.