Shutter Hub members Stephen McCoy and Stephanie Wynne are set to open The Urban Forest on 17th February: an exhibition which explores the interaction between man and nature in the form of tree planting in urban areas. Julia García Hernández describes the series:

McCoy Wynne’s The Urban Forest brings together a series of photographs that picture the ‘greening’ of the urban environment in the north west of England. The forest of the title suggests a density of mature, vertical trunks overhung by green, leafy canopies: a land type in which trees are the dominant feature. Whilst the tree is the intended subject of these pictures, it battles to become the subject; it struggles to be seen.

Many of these images show the early phases of tree-planting schemes. The cages and wooden frames that appear to further confine the trees are enclosures and props that offer some protection for saplings during early growth. With help the young trees will survive to establish a greener post-industrial landscape. Far from being campaigning, The Urban Forest invites us look again at an underdeveloped feature in an often overdeveloped, crowded and cluttered, urban landscape.

You can see the exhibition at Ness Botanic Gardens, Neston Road, Ness, South Wirral, SH64 4AY from 17 February to 30 March 2015 (10am-4pm), and you can find out more about the work of McCoy Wynne at the website here.