A Filipino-Swiss gallery owner has partnered with two Czech private firms in putting together an outdoor art exhibit they called “Forest of Civilizations” at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.
Their exhibit featured ancient subfossil oak trees which, according to them, “represent history, resilience, and the continuity of life.”
Minerva Mondejar-Steiner, a native of Tacloban City, Leyte, who owns the Mondejar Gallery based in Zurich, Switzerland has gained a reputation for curating exhibits that merge artistic innovation with historical consciousness.
She described the Forest of Civilizations exhibit as ”more than an international installation.”
“It is a statement of how Filipino creativity and leadership can resonate within the world’s most prestigious cultural platforms, expanding the reach of Philippine art while shaping conversations on preservation and shared human history,” Mondejar-Steiner said in a statement.
Their exhibits showcased 133 pieces of subfossil oak trees, remarkably preserved underground for 6,500 years since the Ice Age.
“These ancient oak trees, found over eight meters deep in the ground, were extracted seven years ago, embedded within glacial sediments in the North Moravia region of the modern Czech Republic,” the exhibitor explained.
“The preserved annual rings of the tree trunks offered insights, with the use of modern technology, into thousands of years of climate patterns, land shifts, and natural phenomena,” she added.
