Materials
Rip-stop textile, fan

Client
350.org, Messzelátó Association

Staff
Concept, design: Péter Koros
Art director: András Gross
Photo, video: Gergő Magyar & András Gross

Short description
BAOBAB is an outdoor installation composed of textile partitions with different pressure. The air need is provided by a cold-air fan. The trunk is held under constant pressure, while the pressure in the crown of the tree can be regulated by imposition of hands on certain parts of the trunk by the surrounding people. Due to the pressure increase, the crown gets back to its original form.

Details
Restraining climate change is only possible if we act on jointly. The aim of the Baobab campaign is to attract people’s attention on their individual responsibility, respectively to collect messages from local communities and pass them to decision-makers of the world. The inflatable Baobab installation starts its campaign trail in central Europe in December 2008. There is a lot at stake: representatives of United Nations member states get together in Poznan, Poland in December 2008 in order to lay the foundations for the components of an agreed outcome at COP 15 in Copenhagen. This agreement is planned to become the successor of Kyoto Protocol in 2009 and being as such it will determine for several decades whether the countries will reduce CO2 emission in the future or they will continue environmental destruction intensifying negative effects of climate change which can be already perceived in every country.

We take pictures of people gathered round the Baobab installation, ask them about their opinion, and introduce their messages to decision-makers. We are convinced that our word does count and we are able to influence international decision making and our common future. On every location of the installation our active partners and local environmentalist organizations help us in organizing the public, and phrasing local messages.

Messzelátó Association– Green centre of international volunteer exchange
www.messzelato.hu