THE TREE KNEW
Maja Vržina | 22 October – 20 December 2026
There are places we return to because, almost imperceptibly, something within us changes when we are there. And although the place itself remains the same, the way we see it is no longer quite what it was. In the meantime, we have been shaped by encounters, experiences, losses, joys and everything that has happened between our visits. Over time, such places become more than points in space – they become witnesses to the passage of our own lives.
For Maja Vržina, a Croatian artist who lives and works in London, one such place is Bunhill Fields in central London, a historic burial ground that today serves as both a natural sanctuary and a part of everyday urban life. There, near the gravestone of William Blake, stands a tree to which the artist returned for almost nineteen years, usually on Tuesdays. Beneath its canopy, she drew, wrote, observed and spent time. From this enduring relationship, drawings and written reflections gradually emerged, followed by a handwritten book entitled The Tree Knew, which became one of the starting points for the spatial installation of the same name.
The Tree Knew does not seek to reconstruct the physical setting of Bunhill Fields, but rather to convey the experience of being there – the layers of time, the presence of memory, the relationship between the visible and the hidden, and the proximity of life and death. The tree, growing towards the light and sky, stands in contrast to, yet also forms a connection with, the Field of Silence, a space that directs our gaze towards the earth, its depths and all that remains beneath the surface.
The installation unfolds through several carefully selected elements: a handwritten book, words, a feather, earth, a crack, light and silence. Each carries its own meaning, yet none confines the work to a single interpretation. The book is a tangible trace of a long creative process, while light and silence shape a space in which experience, memory and presence come together.
An important connection to the work is William Blake, the English poet, artist and visionary whose gravestone stands near the tree to which Maja Vržina has returned over the years. His understanding of nature as a realm of imagination resonates with the artist’s own approach – what we see is shaped not only by what lies before us, but also by our experiences, emotions and ways of seeing.
From a personal relationship with a single tree, the work gradually opens up broader reflections on time, transience, continuity and the human need to return to places that have become part of our inner world. In this work, the tree is neither merely a motif nor a symbol. It serves as a connection between the individual and the place, the surface and the depths, that which endures and that which changes.
The exhibition The Tree Knew invites visitors to pause, embrace the silence and engage with the work through their own experiences, as an intimate personal story unfolds into universal questions about life, death, memory and the passage of time.
Exhibition Curator: Jasminka Poklečki, Museum Advisor
Exhibition Dates: 22 October – 20 December 2026
Venue: Croatian Natural History Museum, Demetrova 1, Zagreb