In the quiet northern Seoul neighbourhood of Buam-dong, a ginkgo tree more than a century old has fallen gravely ill under circumstances its neighbours believe were no accident. Residents suspect the nearby Whanki Museum — dedicated to an artist who wrote under the name 'conversation with trees' — of poisoning the ginkgo to resolve a dispute over wall damage, an irony that has struck the community with particular force. The tree, which in Korean culture embodies longevity and resilience, has become a mirror for something larger: the fragile relationship between institutions and the living worl