Treeline screens as part of the Royal Scottish Academy’s 198th Annual Exhibition until 16 June 2024.

Treeline is a collectively made film compiled from hundreds of hours of footage of forests submitted by people across the world. From a patchwork of contributions (sent in by scientists, ecologists, artists and members of the public alike), Maclennan traces a sinuous green line that stretches from the wild woods of North America to the rainforests of the Amazon to the copses of middle England and the scrublands of Africa, as well as myriad places in-between. Resembling a continuous horizontal travelling shot, Maclennan’s infinite panorama of trees is a vivid reminder of the swathes of green that continue to encircle and nourish the planet, and a powerful emblem of the shared resources and shared futures that bind people together. A paean to the beauty and majesty of trees, Treeline also echoes something of their form — putting out exploratory feelers, then drawing material from multiple sources to create an enveloping, overarching structure that is considerably more than the sum of its parts.

Treeline (2021) by Ruth Maclennan was co-commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and Forestry England. Supported by John Hansard Gallery and Hunterian, University of Glasgow.