"Domestic appliance" forest springs up at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

It's the time of year when leaves fall - but at Yorkshire Sculpture Park something very different is going on.

A new forest - with unconventional leaves - has sprung up at the park near Wakefield.

The display features artificial trees laden with a range of domestic appliances including baths, toilets, sinks, dog kennels, dustbins, plastic chairs and parts of fences.

It forms part of an exhibition by international artist Dennis Oppenheim (1938–2011) – at the Park, which runs from today until February 16 2014.

The installation investigates the relationship between natural and artificial environments. Dennis Oppenheim: Alternative Landscape Components, is accompanied by an indoor display featuring the complete set of 100 related drawings by the artist from the same period.

Alongside these drawings is the first public showing of a 2006 interview between Oppenheim and artist-curator Willoughby Sharp (1936-2008), who describe Alternative Landscape Components as ‘a proposal for a giant installation taking the place of nature’.

Here are a few facts about the artist:

• Born in 1938, American artist Dennis Oppenheim lived and worked in New York City from 1968 and also in Springs, East Hampton, from 1985

• He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, in 1965, and a Masters of Fine Art from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in 1966

• Oppenheim received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1969, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1974 and 1982, and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale

• The project has been planned to coincide with Dennis Oppenheim: Thought Collision Factories at the Henry Moore Institute, an exhibition exploring Oppenheim’s use of fireworks and flares