Forest

Forest is a durational artwork about how we can imagine and build a symbiotic future with the natural world.

The project begins by asking how many trees does it take to make a forest?

With thousands of definitions of Forest spoken around the world this question is essential in a global and local understanding of tree populations and the value(s) they represent. Forest is being imagined with a growing network of collaborators from different fields and countries asking each person to share what a forest means for them.

This new forest, built for Leeds, will permanently repopulate one or more urban spaces engaging local people in the development and legacy of an experiment that is designed to span generations. 

Forest will be a long form exploration of how ecological thinking, conservation and nature recovery practices can affect and be driven by an art practice and whether new models of thinking about site, resources, mental health and space can emerge. 

This project has evolved to host a series of conversations. Forest as Forest, Forest as Research, Forest as Human and Forest as Time.

Forest as Forest looked at exploring understandings of forest ecologies and to build conversations around forests as physical spaces, through sharings and conversations on processes of engagement with these landscapes.

Forest as Research, a workshop exploring forest ecologies through research practice taking us from the Arctic Circle to the Amazon via English woodlands & the Yorkshire Dales.

Forest as Human, a workshop exploring human relationships to forest ecologies. Looking towards understandings of forests and human identity, looking from spiritual, emotional, legal and human rights perspectives.

Forest as Time, an online talk and discussion exploring deep time relationships with forest ecologies in the Baixo-Tapajós region of Amazonia. Developing understandings of human-environmental relationships and indigenious land ownership through archaeobotany and the study of ancient plant remains as well as a dialogue with earth borne materials through ceramics practice.

What makes a forest? The first in a series of workshops looked at exploring understandings of forest ecologies and to build conversations around forests as physical spaces, through sharings and conversations on processes of engagement with these landscapes.

The event was curated in collaboration with Bangkok based new media artist Jennifer Katanyoutant.

The workshop was led by presentations from four inspiring people; Siwakorn Odachao, a farmer of the Ban Nong Tao Pgak’yau (Karen) community in Northern Thailand. Matt Taylor, a UK based practitioner and consultant in sustainable land management.  Toh Hui Ran, manager of Uthai Forest, growing a forest on 20 hectares of barren, former paddy fields in Uthai Thani, Thailand and Ned Prideaux, a member of Leeds Coppice Workers Cooperative who are committed to restoring and managing neglected and underused woodlands in the Leeds area.

An online talk and discussion exploring deep time relationships with forest ecologies in the Baixo-Tapajós region of Amazonia.

We explore understandings of human-environmental relationships and indigenious land ownership through archaeobotany and the study of ancient plant remains as well as a dialogue with earth borne materials through ceramics practice.

We are honoured to welcome presentations from two unique perspectives, Vandria Borari, born in the Borari territory, in Alter do Chão, Baixo-Tapajós region, Amazon is a law graduate, ceramics artist and international activist. And Professor Myrtle Pearl Shock, a professor of archaeology at the Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará (UFOPA) in the city of Santarém, in northeastern Brazil. Her work focuses on issues of environmental management and plant cultivation in the lowlands, cerrado and tropical forest, through paleoethnobotanical research.

Forest is supported by a research and development grant from Leeds 2023.

Collaborators include Jennifer Katanyoutant, Siwakorn Odachao; Ban Nong Tao Pgak’yau (Karen) community, Ned Prideaux; Leeds Coppice Workers Cooperative, Matt Taylor; Forest and Land, Hui Ran Toh; Uthai Forest.