A collection of still images from the Mooney Center Gallery exhibition Feb 28 to Mar 23, 2009.

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Video footage from the Mooney Center Gallery exhibition Feb 28 to Mar 23, 2009.

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Using product packaging from items containing the ingredient "Palm oil", artist Alina Bachmann constructs an environment reminiscent of the tree tops of the rainforest to shed light on an issue surrounding one of our closest cousins, the orangutan. The rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia, the orangutan's only remaining home, are being destroyed and replaced with oil palm plantations to meet the global demand for the ingredient. Dispersed throughout the artist's tree forms are facts and statistics that inform the viewer of this crisis, how we contribute to it through the items we use daily, and what can be done to prevent the orangutan's predicted extinction of 2011 and save the remaining forest. The installation brings this issue closer to home and allows the viewer to examine his/her place in the process.