Burning Forests

Hello everyone, I am working for an artist in Berlin, and we are working on an exhibition about the destruction of tropical rainforests in South-East Asia. We are currently working on artwork which is depicting the rainforest on one of the museum wall. We would like to realize it with real ashes of burnt tropical rainforests.

For this reason I am writing here, I thought someone might want to help us, and connect us to someone who is in the areas currently affected by the disasters. We hope to find someone that could collect some ashes for us on spot and send them to Germany, for an adequate remuneration!

I hope to hear from you soon!

Ah, interesting idea. The burnt forests here are in remote areas so it's not going to be easy to get hold of ashes without either knowing someone or actually getting a flight out there.
What sort of quantity are you after and when do you need them for.

Hello Fred, Thank you for the answer! Do you maybe know someone or could you do it yourself? Maybe something between 2kgs and 5 kgs of ashes. Let's say a medium parcel, I am not sure how heavy are ashes. We would need them to be delivered in Germany at the end of March, so a week before they should leave Indonesia I guess. Let me know!

Tough job. There are several issues, free time being a big one at least for me.
You'd need to identify exact locations
You'd need a reasonably fresh fire site as rainy season will disperse the ashes quickly
There might well be political issues as the fires are a hot potato involving several countries.
Access to remote areas isn't easy and the companies involved in this obscene act might well get violent if someone snoops around.
Getting someone to collect them for you could mean you end up with ashes from whatever they burn to sell you the ashes.

There goes the negative side but I might know someone who is able to help. I'll let you know if anything comes from it.
Are Anne and Etienne the curators?

I have friends in that city of forest fires in Riau and Kalimantan Tengah.
But the problem is so far and difficult to get into the target location.
The location is only pedestrian or using motorcross. As far then it took about 2 days back home.

How to send ashes across the world. I am sure Indonesian customs will  not be impressed to see it being taken out of the country.

lukereg wrote:

How to send ashes across the world. I am sure Indonesian customs will  not be impressed to see it being taken out of the country.


A careful choice of words is likely to solve that problem.
Maybe 'Ash samples' or something else that doesn't say what they're for.
Collection could raise issues with local interested parties as this is politically very sensitive.

I've explored options for the OP but come up with nothing. Collecting personally is likely to take around a week and I don't have free time, and finding someone in the area has come up with nothing.

Thank you everyone! We are still looking for something. So far nothing is really coming to a concrete solution tough. I hope I will sort out something.

I've tried to talk to the relevant people who handle forest fires in Riau province. Keep in mind that the distance to the location distant forest fires to population, which is approximately 7 km, which burned forest area reached 10 hectares, the condition that the burning forest land that overgrown shrubs and weeds.

To the BNPB officer I say ask for help to get the ashes of forest fire in the area you work in Riau. He said "We can not accommodate your needs".

This mean is very difficult to get it.