MLF: Of The Oak

Of The Oak is an immersive installation celebrating the oak tree as a network of relationships. The work engages with a high resolution laser scan of the Lucombe oak found at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew. It is displayed on a large projection beside the tree.

Full details and project credits including images are available on MLF’s website.

Artist statement from Marshmallow Laser Feast:

There is more to an oak than meets the eye.
– A thread woven into the story of our kind.

Of the Oak is an invitation to witness the tree as a living monument of connection, a keystone in the web of life. Majestic, yet unassuming, it reaches its branches skyward and roots deep into the soil, sustaining life.

By peering through the oak’s layers, we uncover a vibrancy that flows through and beyond its body. The pulse of nutrients through its phloem echoes our own heartbeat. This rhythmic journey, from crown to soil, culminates in rivers of carbon, interwoven with the mycelial bridge that connects land and sky. In this underground network, we see that no self is isolated; all are porous, enmeshed, entangled.

The oak’s meaning stretches far beyond bark and bough. Its limbs embrace whole ecosystems, providing shelter and food for more than 2,300 species1. From lichens anchored to bark to birds building nests overhead, butterflies fluttering through the leaves to fungi weaving the soil below—countless companions of the oak adapt, flourish, and coexist in a mutual rhythm of growth and revival. In acknowledging this complexity, we confront our own plant blindness, our tendency to overlook the aliveness of plants because they move to a rhythm slower than ours.

This shift in perspective reveals a framework of reciprocity, where all beings exist in cycles of giving and receiving. As our connection to the Earth frays, this work stands as an invitation to extend our imagination to include the vastness of trees. In turn, we also open ourselves to a deeper relationship with the living world.

For over a million years, oaks have taken root in Britain’s soil, their story etched into the fabric of the land. As ice ages came and went, they withdrew and returned, reclaiming ground alongside animals and, eventually, humans. Yet today, these rooted beings stand at a threshold. What once seemed eternal now leans toward fragility, its fate entwined with our capacity to care. As we gather in its shade, we are called to become part of its story—to ensure it is not only remembered, but continued.

— Marshmallow Laser Feast, 2025

Other Links

• Kew Gardens