How the artwork works

At Davos 2026,
Art makes real-time forest loss
visible to world leaders 

Forestate by Thijs Biersteker, in collaboration with UNESCO, unveiled at the World Economic Forum

Davos, Switzerland | 19–23 January 2026

Central at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, ecological artist Thijs Biersteker will present Forestate, a monumental five-metre-high art installation that uses real-time forestry data to disappear and reappear in response to global deforestation and reforestation rates. Commissioned by the World Economic Forum’s Arts & Culture programme and developed in collaboration with UNESCO, the work brings abstract environmental data vividly to life, confronting world leaders with the real-time realities of forests vanishing and regenerating across the globe.

Artist Biersteker, and founder of The Woven Foundation, has been invited as a WEF Cultural Leader to create a work that brings the state of the planet's forests to the heart of the WEF. Using real-time data from satellites, the work creates a reflection and shared understanding of the state of our forest. In one of the most factual decision-making environments in the world, Thijs weaves the facts with feelings to make the urgency understandable, relatable and actionable. 

A living portrait of the world’s forests
Suspended from the ceiling in the heart of the Congress Centre, world leaders will experience a real-time visualisation of the state of forests each time they pass beneath. The artwork transforms live environmental satellite data and brings it alive in a tangible, constantly evolving canopy of leaves that have the unique capability to become transparent or not. Each disappearing leaf represents 100 square metres of forest lost in real time; each returning leaf symbolises the same area of forest regained. Making it a visually intriguing work with a confronting message. 

“At first glance, you see the work disappearing and reappearing in a beautiful way. But when you notice the number displayed beside it, the symbolism becomes immediately clear—and that is when reality, and urgency, truly set in. Every second, we lose 3,450 square metres of forest, but luckily, at the same time, we regain around 2,148 square metres. Progress is happening, but slowly. These scales are almost impossible to grasp, which is why bringing this dry data to life—through an artwork placed at the heart of power—is such a powerful way to create awareness and urgency.”
– Thijs Biersteker, Artist and Founder of Woven Foundation

UNESCO validated data
The work is a unique combination of technology, data and visualisation.
The work draws on UNESCO-validated data, gaining real-time updates from satellite monitoring of the Global Forest Watch data, using weekly GLAD (Global Land Analysis & Discovery) alerts to reflect current deforestation trends worldwide.

Because forest regrowth unfolds over decades rather than days, Forestate visualises recovery using the scientifically accepted 20-year average rate of tree cover gain, based on the standard 30% canopy threshold used in satellite analysis. 

The result is a striking contrast between the speed of destruction and the slowness of recovery, a visual gap that underscores both urgency and responsibility.

Placed at the heart of the Forum, Forestate confronts global leaders with the asymmetry between loss and renewal, while offering a quiet but persistent reminder that closing this gap is essential for a nature-positive future.

Biodiversity, technology and impact finance
The urgency around forests is now. Following COP30 in Belém, climate finance, carbon markets and large-scale nature investment mechanisms are expected to remain central to discussions in Davos. Proposals such as Brazil’s Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) — designed to mobilise long-term capital for tropical forest protection — highlight growing interest in measurable, transparent approaches to financing biodiversity.

Forestate sits precisely at the intersection of biodiversity data, technological infrastructure and impact-oriented finance. By translating complex datasets into a shared sensory experience, the artwork creates a common reference point for policymakers, financiers, scientists and business leaders navigating different frameworks and metrics.  

“At the World Economic Forum, the challenge is not a lack of data — it is cognitive overload. Decision-makers are surrounded by dashboards, reports and metrics. What is missing is immediacy and salience. Forestate functions as a cognitive anchor: it reduces fragmentation by making the state of the world’s forests instantly graspable, shared and impossible to ignore.”

– Thijs Biersteker,
Artist and Founder of Woven Foundation

Arts and culture at the World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum integrates arts and culture into its programme to reflect the full complexity of global challenges and to embed cultural change within economic and political dialogue. Through its Arts & Culture platform, WEF collaborates with artists and cultural institutions to commission and present works that foster empathy, connection and long-term thinking.

At the WEF Davos in 2026, Biersteker joins fellow Cultural Leaders, including Marina Abramovic, Suleika Jaouad, JR, Sabrina Elba, Jon Batiste and Sir David Beckham. Previous contributors to the WEF Arts & Culture programme include Olafur Eliasson, Refik Anadol, Sougwen Chung and Platon.

Press contact (images, interviews, further information)
Marjolein van Zanten: marjolein.vanzanten@wovenstudio.io

“As the challenges of the modern world grow more complex, the arts become more vital. By speaking to emotion as much as reason, culture unlocks understanding, cooperation, and action in ways data alone never can.

– Joseph Fowler, Head of Arts & Culture at the World Economic Forum.