The work Listener consists of five sets of ears made from cast tin. They were attached to the trunks of trees in Changhampuzha Park, near Kochi in Kerala, India. A local metal smith was identified, and he built a small foundry from the dirt. The ears were originally sculpted in bees wax, then covered in clay. The wax was melted out, and hot tin poured into the mold.

Listener points to humanity’s  deafness towards nature.  A tree with tin ears points not to the ability of the tree to hear, but to our continued reflex to anthropomorphize our surroundings. We become the tree… If we could just hear ourselves.

More pictures from the International Symposium of Sculptors and travels in the region here: paullitherland.com/india