Ackroyd and Harvey's tree rings at the Olympic Park

One of the Olympic tree rings next to the Velodrome

Design studio Pentagram have recently blogged about their involvement in History Trees, a set of ten metal rings which each encircle a tree marking the entrances to the Olympic Park by artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey. Several of the artworks were unveiled in May 2012, and according to the artists' website: 'Three of the sculptures will be present for the Games with the remaining seven to be installed for the opening of the Queen Elizabeth II public park.' 

The artists worked with Harry Pearce and Naresh Ramchandani renowned graphic design team Pentagram on the typography, which is based on stories collected by artist Lucy Harrison and research provided by the Museum of London. Each ring is made from phosphored bronze and stainless steel. According to the Creative Review website, each piece 'measures 15 metres in diameter' but this would be massive so I am guessing they might mean 15 metres in length. Each ring tells the story of the area in which it is installed – as "pieces of verbal archaeology," as Ramchandani put it on the Pentagram blog.

Interestingly Creative Review magazine have raised the issue that the rings appear to be actually quite high up the trees, posing the query of how easy they are to actually read.....

Read more about the project on Ackroyd & Harvey's website:
http://www.ackroydandharvey.com/olympic-commission/


Read source article at:
http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2012/july/typographic-tree-rings


Creative Review wrote about some of the other commissions in an earlier blog posting: 
http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2012/april/the-art-of-the-olympics