Garden of Stones at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Battery Park City

Artist: Andy Goldsworthy

Date: Installed, 2003

"Garden of Stones", an eloquent garden plan of trees growing from stone, is Andy Goldsworthy's design for the Memorial Garden of The Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Eighteen boulders form a series of narrow pathways in the Memorial Garden's 4,150-square-foot space. A single dwarf oak sapling emerges from the top of each boulder, growing straight from the stone. As the trees mature in the coming years, each will grow to become a part of the stone, its trunk widening and fusing to the base. The work reflects the tension between the ephemeral and the timeless, between young and old, and between the unyielding and the pliable. More importantly, it demonstrates how elements of nature can survive in seemingly impossible places. In Jewish tradition, stones are often placed on graves as a sign of remembrance. Here, Goldsworthy brings stone and trees together as a representation of life cycles intertwined.