The main element of the project is an artificial date palm (Phoenix Canariensis) placed on a road island in the middle of the De Gaulle Roundabout, at the intersection of the two most important streets of Warsaw (historically, culturally, and communication-wise): Nowy Ĺšwiat (New World Street) and Aleje Jerozolimskie (Jerusalem Avenue). The project is an attempt to examine social consciousness, or indeed its devastation triggered by the absence of the Jewish minority in the capital after WW2. The palm sprang up in 2002. Placing an element alien to the metropolitan, Central
European landscape evoked a lot of emotions in the public sphere – discussions about intervention of artistic actions into collective urban tissue, dominating and sidelined ethics and sensitivities, as well as social behaviors, pro- and anti-Semitic events, grassroots fundraising for the conservation of the artwork. With the passing of time, after serving as a symbol of the divisions between inhabitants open to otherness and traditionalists, the palm became a symbol of Warsaw.
Such an absurd element puts reality in a different light. [Kuba, 37]
The palm is a symbol of otherness and gets people to reflect on something different than what we see when we look down: the grey street tiles, the pavement, or that horrible briquette! [Olga, 50]
65