Giants Among Trees

At 46, Thomas Dambo hasn’t spent years in an office or wearing a suit. His career isn’t defined by bottom lines or how much he has in his 401k. A self-described “garbage artist/recycle art activist” with what he calls a “hoarder disorder,” Thomas (as he prefers to be called) spends his days wearing what most people would consider hiking gear, traversing his large property in Denmark, where he operates a massive workshop and several outbuildings where nothing short of magic takes place.

Though he’s become known around the globe for his immense wooden trolls, Thomas’s origin story began with a childhood spent with his parents and brother on a commune in the Danish countryside, where he was instilled with the value of protecting nature and using recycled materials to make his own toys, costumes, treehouses and whatever else could be made with his own hands. He graduated from Kolding Design School in 2010 with a degree in Interactive Design, where he began experimenting with recycled materials. A man of multifaceted talents, he spent a great deal of time in the art and music worlds, having performed as a rapper, human beatbox, graffiti and street artist, and even worked in Danish television before deciding to embrace a full-time career in art. His early projects included building furniture and creating urban installations solely from trash, often incorporating music, storytelling, and performance.

Those creative beginnings, combined with his deep concern for the planet’s ever-growing waste problem, eventually evolved into the large-scale sculptures that define his work today. What began as an experiment in reimagining trash soon became an immersive process of transforming discarded wood into the stuff of folklore. In addition to locally sourced, recycled timber from secondhand furniture, wooden pallets, barrels, water-damaged planks, and other discarded scraps, Thomas also collects branches and leaves—all of which become gigantic sculptures of trolls inspired by the fairytales and myths of his youth. Hundreds upon hundreds of hours are spent on each troll, employing the help of often 100 or so volunteers who invest their time into seeing each project through, collecting the timber and branches, and assembling…Bringing Thomas’s incredible vision to life in hulking, three-dimensional form.

It may seem ludicrous to those uninitiated to the intersection of art and environmental science, but these sculptures are about more than just one man’s desire to create. They’re about sending a message, about opening people’s eyes to the idea that, in Thomas’s words, “trash can become treasure.” In a world where everything is disposable and we have so much waste, Thomas seeks to remind us of the importance of maintaining the beauty of our natural resources. “My mission is ‘Waste No More,’” he says. “Our world is drowning in trash while we are running out of natural resources. I choose to spend my life showing the world that beautiful things can be made out of trash. I give new life to discarded materials by turning them into large-scale artworks. My aim at the moment is to build 1,000 trolls using recycled materials all over the world.”

Since beginning this mission in 2014, Thomas has averaged more than a dozen trolls per year. By the end of 2025, he and his team will have completed 173 trolls in 22 countries spanning from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, in locales ranging from lush forests to arid deserts. In addition to his home country of Denmark, Thomas has left his mark in Germany, France, Mexico, China, Puerto Rico, Belgium, Chile, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Canada, Rio de Janeiro, England, Northern Ireland, and 21 states throughout the U.S. His most recent undertaking can be discovered here in North Carolina, with seven permanent trolls statewide: five in Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Park and one installation each in High Point and Charlotte. A separate traveling exhibition, “Trolls: A Field Study,” will appear at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, running from November 15, 2025, through February 17, 2026.

Towering at heights up to 36 feet tall, these trolls are hard to miss, but Thomas is someone who appreciates fun. As serious as he is about conservation and recycling, there is an underlying current of whimsy in every project. Each of his sculptures is plotted on a digital “Troll Map,” giving troll-seekers the exact location and accompanying poems that Thomas himself has penned to tell each troll’s individual story—and that story now includes the Conservancy at Dix Park. Named Dix, Dax, Dux, Mother Strong Tail, and Daddy Bird Eye, the trolls at Dix Park have been conjured by Thomas’s incredible creativity, built by his sense of duty to the Earth he respects so greatly, and given a message that he hopes will resonate as a call to action:

Between these 20 rhymes, you'll meet some different characters

seven trolls, a big old tree, and then you, you're the narrator

First, the trolls, a mother and a father, and their fivelings

They grew up in a forest somewhere under the horizon

And then, second is the Grandmother, a mighty ancient tree

The beacon of the forest, without her, they all grow aimlessly

And then the third is you, your name is written in the caption

In the center of the action, you decide what’s next to happen

But one species, all trolls, has learned to fear through evolution

Invasive, a pollution, you must never trust a human

A human seeks the oldest trees, to kill and cut them down

and chop it up in tiny pieces, haul it, burn it in their town

And so the trolls have cast a spell, enchanted the grandmother tree

So no human can find her; now she looks like any other tree

But every time the moon is dark, the red wolves howl and bark

This is the sign that sparks the start, the trolls to search the park

Where they go is a secret; you can come if you can keep it

swear to never speak it, eat it, never to repeat it

One troll is in Charlotte, one in High Point, five in Dix Park

Seven secret symbols on the troll map, you must start

For more information, visit thomasdambo.com.