Located within a sliver of parkland, between a railroad track and a street, in Glarus, Switzerland, a surprising sculpture rises from the ground and gently wraps its fingers around a tree, created by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber, who named it Hand. However, it is popularly known as The Caring Hand, since the underlying the message of this sculpture is a call to be responsible and caring about the environment. The symbolic sculpture, around five feet tall, was cast in concrete probably in the studio of the sculptors in Ennenda, in 2004, as a part of an exhibition of three-dimensional works in urban space.
The temporary installation of the caring hand was a great success with the audience, who demanded that the city of Glarus should buy it. On public demand, the sculptors gifted the piece of art to the city, which was permanently installed in parkland in the city of Glarus. Later, in a joint statement, the creators stated that they did not want to set a monument to the gardening profession, but they intended to point out that as a great human race, all of us are responsible for our living space.
The town of Glarus is not a Zürich-like metropolis, it is rather a large Alpine village, with a 2018 population of only 12,425 and the sculpture is just like an ordinary natural feature of the landscape, along a street in Glarus, with a path parallel to it. The sculptured hand is not a flat hand, merely displaying the tree, it is neither engaged in the action to pick it up from above.
It is rather cupping the tree within its fingers, with a sense of restrained power in those concrete fingers. The Hand seems to be a natural fence providing a potentially protective shield around its trunk. With the fingers that curve inward, it seems to guard and protect the tree carefully, affectionately and protectively, like the hand of a loving parent.
The symbolic structure of the Caring Hand is also strikingly incorporated into the setting, as it seems to grow out of the ground, rather than appearing to be something that has been imposed on the space around the tree from the outside. It appears to be rooted there, just like the same way that the tree is rooted in the ground. It seems to be a part of the natural environment, rather than an imposed idea that has no connection to the place it inhabits. In addition to that, the hand has become naturalized over the time, as it has become mossy, less shiny and almost greenish. Although it is made of concrete, an inorganic structure like the parking lot, it has achieved an organic relationship with its place.
Nevertheless, the Caring Hand is a silent message to the mankind to take care of the nature, of which humans are also a part.