A guide to trees for governors and gardeners

In the satirical tradition of Jonathan Swift, Yto Barrada's artist book is a guide humbly submitted by an anonymous bureaucrat, zealously advising his readers on how to prepare their city for a visit by a high-ranking official. Seemingly reasonable at first, these directives gradually begin to suggest something amiss behind the patriotic Potemkin facades. Millions of years ago, today's Sahara desert was a tropical paradise. Today, the arid space between Morocco's Atlas Mountains and the desert are home to a hardscrabble cottage industry of excavating, preparing, forging, and selling fossils. Yto Barrada has explored this unique landscape though years of research, photographs, films and objects.