For this iteration of the window programme, Maria Howard presents work from an ongoing research project that highlights the relationship between colonialism and the climate crisis by examining the column as both an architectural and arboreal form.

In De architectura Vitruvius describes how the earliest buildings used wooden posts, arranged at interstices, as their main structural support, suggesting a vegetal origin for the column. The fluting of Doric columns can be seen as a stylisation of furrowed bark, while more decorative elements such as the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order and the festoons of certain Ionic capitals also nod to the column’s beginnings in plants.

Originally a structural element, the column’s function has arguably been subsumed by its form. It can now be seen as a signifier for power, whiteness, patriarchy and wealth. This is reflected in its prominent, and often superfluous, presence in neoclassical buildings commissioned by Glasgow’s merchants, aristocrats and Lord Provosts in the 18th and 19th centuries – a period defined by European colonialism and imperialism, the transatlantic slave trade and the rapid industrialisation that laid the foundations for today’s climate crisis.

The works in the window are accompanied by an extract from a longer piece of speculative fiction which is still in progress. Together they reimagine the column as a structure with roots, allowing the memory of the tree to return to this ubiquitous form and acting as a reminder of the need to resist and disrupt the still extant edifices of imperialism and colonialism, and to prioritise climate justice before further tipping points are reached.

Facing the buildings of the ‘Merchant City’ the window installation attempts to establish a dialogue between Glasgow’s colonial past, neoliberal present and ecological future.

Maria Howard is a British-Italian artist and writer based in Glasgow.