'Only Tree Knows': Art, Science and the Focus on Forest

A large nature-meets-art show, entitled "Only Tree Knows," will open on May 1 at the Shanghai Natural History Museum, pairing contemporary art with its scientific collections.

Co-presented by the Being Art Museum, the exhibition brings together 22 works by 12 artists from around the world alongside 10 sets of natural specimens, all anchored in the idea of the forest.

Installations, video, sound, scent and algorithm-generated pieces unfold across above- and below-ground environments, shifting the focus away from people and toward how trees, fungi, soil and light interact to shape life beyond the human scale.

Artworks are placed with specimens, blurring the line between observation and interpretation. Carsten Höller's "Giant Triple Mushroom" magnifies fungal forms to an almost architectural scale, echoing both oversized leaves and microscopic mycelium. Billy Childish's "Birch Trees" and Zadok Ben David's "Black Flowers" mirror the textures and repeating patterns found in tree rings and bark.

Beyond the visual, the show leans into a full sensory experience.

Olafur Eliasson's "Firefly Festival" uses light to evoke the shifting rhythms of a forest, while Hildegard Westerkamp's "Beneath the Forest Floor" draws on field recordings to surface the quiet activity beneath the soil. Tomás Saraceno's "Sounding the Air" turns otherwise invisible air currents into something physically perceptible, rounding out an exhibition that is as much felt as it is seen.

The exhibition will run through August 31.

If you go:

Date: May 1-August 31

Venue: B1 Temporary Exhibition Hall, Shanghai Natural History Museum 上海自然博物馆B1临展厅

Address: 510 Beijing Rd W., Jing'an District

静安区北京西路510号