The block of river red gum was cut from a 10,000-year-old tree excavated from a quarry . When timber is buried for so long it is starved of oxygen and saturated with iron and silica; the oxidised material that results is part timber and part fossil. Often buried deep down for millions of years, organic materials, plants and trees can transform further into organic compounds, including crude oil. Oil, a fossil fuel, is a key ingredient in the polypropylene used to manufacture the ubiquitous, long-lasting plastic chair that Wright has dismembered and embedded in the block of wood.