Sculpture: Tree of Education
This is a 1992 work entitled “Tree of Education,” located oddly enough at the National Institue of Education, NIE:
No, that’s not your imagination: the Tree of Education really does have a crown that can fit into a box, like a refrigerator. Truncated and controlled, not to say stifled and inadequate. Actually, this does seem to describe education in Singapore pretty well – see my posts on education and testing. Could this artist have had some satirical intent? Could this actually be art as intelligent social commentary? I bet the folks who designed its placement didn’t think of it that way. For a comparison of the shape of the Tree of Education with real trees, see below:
