THE HULUPPU TREE – Shortlisted at the Chaumont International Garden Festival – 2020 Edition – In collaboration with Architect Andrea Russo
At that time a single tree, the Huluppu tree, was planted by the banks of the pure Euphrates; it was nurtured by the its crystalline waters and vegetated in solitude.
One day, a violent southern storm arose, pulling at its roots and ripping at its branches, until the waters of the Euphrates carried it away. A woman, Inanna, rescued it and planted it in her “sacred garden”.
The Huluppu tree is the famous Sumerian myth that narrates the genesis of Life on the Earth. The tree or better the nature would disappear if Inanna had not taken it to her sacred garden. From its ruin and his own shreds Life reproduced itself and its ruins guard so that nobody ever forget.
In our days, Life, in its richness and biodiversity, is still threatened again: new plagues and climate change are re-enacting Huluppu myth. It is our job to behave like Inanna and save life to bring it to the future of new generations.
The visitor, crossing the threshold of Inanna’s sacred garden, enters the place where life was saved: walking on a blue gravel path, to echo the waters of the Euphrates river, he or she is surrounded by the ‘new gardens’, a lush planting of annual and perennial plants, symbol of vitality of nature to oppose the destruction caused by climate change.
In the centre of the garden, hundreds of young trees, the “sacred grove”, are fed and grow protected by the spirit of the big Huluppu tree, whose remains lie on the ground and from which they benefit the life force. Getting into the future forest, the visitor will follow the paths traced on the ground, and will see the regenerating nature, the life continues despite everything.
The Huluppu tree tragically recalls the disaster that occurred in northern Italy, in Trentino, where the extermination of more than two million trees, by the fury of a storm called “Vaia”, took place on Monday 28 October 2018.
