Artist Workshop: Rethinking Forests 

The sec­ond artist work­shop of the IDK “Rethinking Environment” start­ed out in driz­zly rain. Forest scien­tist, for­mer for­ester and for­estry offi­cial Wolf­gang Sailer led the group through the Sie­ben­tischwald and ex­plained the histo­ry of this forest and its im­mense im­portance for the health of the urban popu­lation. Since tem­pera­tures in the forest are 4 to 5 de­grees Celsi­us below urban tem­pera­tures, it makes sense to bring con­tigu­ous forest vege­tation into the city to com­bat the ef­fects of global warm­ing on all living things. At a junc­tion, we fol­lowed pho­togra­pher, envi­ron­men­tal edu­cator, and IDK PhD stu­dent Pia Wimmer along a nar­row path be­tween the trees, with our eyes closed. The con­cept known as “for­est bath­ing” proved to be the per­fect prel­ude to the crea­tive activi­ty that fol­lowed.

Art­ist Eva-Maria López dis­tributed paper and col­ored wax to create so-called “frottages” - a cre­ative tech­nique used by surre­alist Max Ernst, for ex­ample - to con­nect with the forest in an im­medi­ate, indi­vidual way. Pia also en­couraged us to take pho­tos with our mo­bile phones - an ap­proach that relies heavi­ly on cul­tural expe­rienc­es and rou­tines in deal­ing with pho­tography and ad­dress­es the phe­no­men­on of the “selfie.” This play­ful exer­cise stimu­lated deep­er think­ing about what it means to repre­sent a forest, how “au­then­tic” such repre­senta­tions are and how much we rely on our senses to create cer­tain kinds of expe­rienc­es.

After an over­view of her career as an artist with a long-stand­ing focus on envi­ron­men­tal issues (“Green Hour with Eva-Maria López”), we took the streetcar to Augsburg's Rathausplatz, where we were able to expe­rience the artist's latest inter­ven­tion: Eva-Maria's “pa­per-trees” app uses aug­ment­ed reality to make a sus­taina­ble and clima­te-friendly future imag­inable in the face of in­creas­ing cli­mate im­pact prob­lems. The amount of paper con­sumed by the popu­lation of Augsburg in a year is con­verted into trees in the app, creat­ing shade, fresh air, and a clima­te-friendly and bio­di­verse public space.

Cas­par Möl­ler ex­plained the aims of Miya Forest Eberswalde and pre­sent­ed ex­am­ples of “tiny for­ests” in in­ner-city areas. It be­came clear how im­portant the partic­ipa­tion of the popu­lation is in the im­ple­men­tation of urban cli­mate pro­tec­tion. Dur­ing the con­clud­ing panel “Digi­tal Hu­mani­ties, Art and the Envi­ron­ment”, Cas­par Möl­ler, Eva-Maria López, Stef­an Lindl and Pia Wimmer dis­cuss­ed how digital media can sup­port the de­velopment of more sus­taina­ble, clima­te-friendly cities - but also the limita­tions of digi­taliza­tion com­pared to other forms of envi­ron­men­tal expe­rience.

In the final work­shop with Eva-Maria López, we crea­tively ex­plored the forest and the things we had found there in the morn­ing. It was the per­fect set­ting to dis­cuss how physi­cal en­coun­ters with leaves, bark, small twigs etc. differ from pho­tography and digital art.heavily on cul­tural expe­rienc­es and rou­tines in deal­ing with pho­tography and ad­dress­es the phe­no­men­on of the “selfie.” This play­ful exer­cise stimu­lated deep­er think­ing about what it means to repre­sent a forest, how “au­then­tic” such repre­senta­tions are and how much we rely on our senses to create cer­tain kinds of expe­rienc­es.

Text: PD. Dr. Kirsten Twelbeck and Laura Grötsch, International Doctoral Program “Rethinking Environment”