Under the Canopy

An artistic manifestation of community, collaboration, and one artist’s vision, Henry Jackson

Swipe to view images

"In 2022, I was approached by then San Francisco Zoo President & CEO, Tanya McVeigh Peterson, to consider a site-specific installation that would address Climate Change &/or Coastal Conservancy. Because of my personal experiences (as a visiting artist) in the rainforests at Monte Azul Center for the Arts in Costa Rica, I chose the former. I contacted the Director, Carlos Rojas Jara, to present the opportunity. After analyzing the architectural and sculptural nature of the installation, we naturally invited Andrés Cañas, a talented sculptor who is also an acclaimed architect with a history of creating sculptural installations as architectural structures.

My years-long involvement with Monte Azul and that institution’s equally long relationship with the San Francisco Zoo made a natural fit. I was also excited for the opportunity to work with a group of talented individuals whom I respect and admire."

—Henry Jackson

Design, Fabrication and Installation Team:

Alan Omar Soto

David Magnusson

Flavio Torrez

Design advisors:

Andres Cañas, Sculptor and Architect

Carlos Rojas Jara, Director of Monte Azul Center for the Arts

Soundscape Composer:

Andrew Roth, Roth Audio Design

Project Donors:

The Bernard Osher Foundation

Crankstart and Ms. Gail Secchia

SF Zoo Trustee & Patron

Under the Canopy, the Completed Installation

Upon entering, guests encounter a towering 8’ totem embodying the Mother of the Rainforest. Inspired by Curupira, the Tupi-Guarani guardian goddess, she stands as a warning of nature’s peril and a demand to protect our sacred home.

The immersive soundscape, designed by Andrew Roth, spotlights creatures from the vulnerable to the extinct. All of the sounds are sampled from his field recordings in Costa Rica’s rainforests, creating an auditory experience that underscores the biodiversity lost daily to climate change and deforestation. This marks Henry and Andrew’s second collaboration for the San Francisco Zoo.

Past the totem, a massive boulder stands with water flowing down its face, reflecting the enduring interplay between permanence and change.

The exhibit journeys through the four layers of a rainforest, with the Canopy as the most active. Here, four Kapok-inspired trees reach toward one another in a gesture of both support and alarm. Their leaves are hand-formed from copper, chosen for its ability to oxidize into a living green patina—echoing a leaf’s life cycle. Ironically, copper is a metal often mined to the detriment of rainforests. The 260+ leaves are a reminder of the current monthly loss of rainforest species.

In the final Emergent Layer, brought to floor level, a trail of cut trees marks the advance of industrial agriculture. A makeshift highway bears foreboding signs, with a soundscape stripped of life—only passing vehicles and wind remain— portraying the stark destruction wrought by deforestation and unchecked progress.

Gratitude: Reflecting on Community & the Humanities in Our Latest Collaboration

At Monte Azul Center for the Arts, our work begins with a simple, profound principle: gratitude. We are grateful for the trust of collaborators, for the vitality of our communities, and for the enduring wisdom of the arts and humanities that guide our daily practice. It is from this place of thankfulness that we share the story of our most recent collaboration—the development of a transformative eco-art installation at The San Francisco Zoo: Under the Canopy, lead by artist and Director of Artistic Development at Monte Azul, Henry Jackson.

This project was never just a commission; it was a shared journey with visionary artists and a public institution, a testament to the power of community to envision a more thoughtful world. Together, we conceived a multi-sensory space that does more than display art—it invites a deeply human response to our planet’s most pressing issue.

The Humanities as Our Compass

In a world often dominated by data and headlines, humanities—art, philosophy, ethical inquiry—offer us a vital lens for understanding. This installation, Under the Canopy, is a materialization of that lens. It asks us not just to know about climate change, but also to feel and contemplate our relationship with the natural world, and our responsibilities as the natural world’s most impactful inhabitants.

Guiding visitors through the four architectural layers of a rainforest, the work uses sculpture, sound, and living growth to create a space for reflection. It’s a physical manifestation of the questions the humanities urge us to ask: What do we value? What is our responsibility to each other and to our environment? What stories are we telling about our future?

A Community of Craft & Meaning

True to our values, this project was a mosaic of community expertise. The artist chose copper for the canopy leaves for its layered meaning, knowing its journey mirrors our own relationship with nature: beautiful and beneficial, yet often extracted at a cost. Their work is a humble reminder of the duality human hands hold—both creation and harm—and the conscious choice we must make between them.

Every fallen tree echoes. Every silenced species speaks. What will you hear?

The integration of living plants and vines throughout the sculpture is our core metaphor made manifest. It speaks to nature’s—and by extension, our community’s—innate capacity to heal and rebound when given care and space. We are grateful to contribute to a piece that will literally grow and change over time, a living promise that our actions, however small, can nurture new life, and could be applied on a larger scale.

Andrew Roth's immersive soundscape features the calls of vulnerable species of the world's tropical rainforests. It’s an auditory community, a chorus of life we are entrusted to protect. It reminds us that listening—to each other, to the world around us—is a foundational act of empathy.

A Scaleable Solution is Possible

Many of the wildlife sounds were recorded in Costa Rica, where Monte Azul is located, a country with a pretty fascinating environmental story. In just a few decades, the nation pulled off a dramatic turnaround. The rainforest cover had plummeted from over 75% in the 1940s to just 21% by the 1980s. But then, they tried something different: a mix of national policies, public awareness, and simple financial incentives for conservation. It worked. Today, forests cover over 58% of the country again.

It makes you wonder what's possible when there's a clear plan and public momentum behind it.

This is where gratitude transforms into purpose. The installation’s final takeaway is a question rooted in humanistic hope: How does our daily consumption implicate ecological decline—and how can informed, collective action alter that trajectory? It is a question meant to be carried from this space back into the heart of our communities and daily lives.

With Thanks

We are endlessly grateful to the San Francisco Zoo for being such an intrepid partner in public dialogue, and to the artistic team for their profound vision. This project has been a beautiful reminder that when gratitude, community, and the guiding light of the humanities come together, we can create spaces that don’t just show the world as it is, but help us imagine—and build—the world as it could be.