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Storybook-Style Land Art Scattered Across a Forest in Italy

By Alice Yoo on August 13, 2013

If you love land art, this is one incredible destination you'll, one day, want to visit. Since 1986, Arte Sella has sprinkled the open fields and woods of the Sella Valley in Trento, Italy with storybook-style land art. Over 200 contemporary artists from all around the world, including South Africa, Israel, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan, have come to this area to create original artworks using materials found right on the land. At a minimum, visitors should designate two hours to take in the whole experience.

One of the main attractions is Cattedrale Vegetale or Tree Cathedral by Italian artist Giuliano Mauri. The impressive structure consists of eighty, 8-meter-high timber tree frame columns that, taken as a whole, resembles a Gothic tower. Like many of the works at Arte Sella, the Tree Cathedral is constantly changing. As the NY Times states, “Each column is planted with a hornbeam sapling, which grows about half a meter a year, the overarching top branches curving toward one another to create three Gothic naves, now around 12 meters high, covering over 1,200 square meters, or about 12,900 square foot, of meadow.”

Now here are some whimsical pieces you can expect to find.

Above photo via: Vogue

Photo via: Artesella