Edge of the Forest, Charles Chaplin

Exhibition Label: "Trees & Other Ramifications: Branches in Nature & Culture," Mar-2009, Steve Goddard Chaplin’s Edge of the Forest suggests the impermanence of natural boundaries. While a forests’ edge may physically mark a geographic border, it is actually the intangible borders of climactic zones that determine the spread- and sometimes the end-of any natural inhabitants falling into its range. The anticipation of warmer, drier summers in the South of England (as a result of global climate change) leads some to believe that moisture-loving species like the European Beech (Fagus sylvatica) will be replaced by others that thrive in a more Mediterranean climate, such as Poplar, Plum, and the Kiwi vine. As the borders of the climactic zones to which we are adapted move northward, some species- like the aged, sentinel Beeches at the edge of Chaplin’s Forest-may find themselves suddenly “out of bounds” and at the edge of extinction.