Open Forest

An experimental research project on forests and forest data to rethink how we traditionally look at forests. This is done through co-creative engagements consisting of walks, talks and interactive installations hosted all across the world.

Goal

When we look at forests we often only see the way we can extract from it: it is a resource that provides us with food, fuel and protection. Open Forest asks us to take a different approach, both towards the forest and the data we gather from it. How can we make the gathering and evaluating of data messy, meaningless and useless for human extractivist goals?

Target audience(s)

1. Forest stakeholders 2. Forest dwellers

Main activities

1. Reimagine and restructure how forest stakeholders make sense of the forest and its data 2. Make space for their stories to be included in readings of forests

Team

The Open Forest Collective

Relevant dimensions

The dimensions most relevant to this project are: inspiring, subverting and co-creating

Close

Open Forest takes participants out to the woods (physically or digitally) to reimagine and create data. By doing so we co-create new messy datasets and entangle existing datasets with (more-than-)human data (Co-creating). This makes extracting from them, for human benefit, harder (Subverting). The project was designed as a ‘feral method’ that can be adapted over and over again by anyone interested (Inspiring).

Results Evaluation — What happened?

Observations and insights.