Introducing Forest Meetings.
Image by Nasra Rashiid for Forest Meetings, 2022.
The Forest is a topic that provokes strong emotions and sometimes conflict. On the forest is placed expectations to meet many needs: to sink carbon, to provide habitats for biodiversity, to replace fossil based building materials, textiles, and fuel, and to provide livelihoods, recreation and more. The forest therefore touches many disciplines and sectors and virtually concerns us all.
The idea behind Forest Meetings was to create a safe, brave, open, knowledge-based and generative meeting place where people of all sectors and disciplines could share perspectives and learn together in relation to the forest.
We created a digital meeting format, bringing together scientific and artistic approaches to create an experience of being in the forest to talk about the forest and imagine new ways to be with the forest that respects Earth’s limits. The meetings followed four themes, focusing on conditions for deep collaborations, futures oriented indicators to guide engagement with the forest, myths and facts - and everything in between, and reimagining innovation in relation to the forest.
The Forest Meetings also generated a series of Forest Field Visits, a digital resource and exhibition containing short videos from lay persons who like to be in the forest as well as forest workers and scientists sharing knowledge and experiences. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to learn about forests and especially thinking about the long time horizons of decision making in and about forestry.
Mathilda Tham led the project Forest Meetings, working with Miranda Moss, Juliana Restrepo-Giraldo, Åsa Ståhl, Jorge Zapico, Linnaeus University. The project took place during 2021–2022 and was hosted by Linneaus Knowledge Environment Green Sustainable Development. The visuals were created by Nasra Rashiid.