About the project Forest Encounters – Podcast Odprto #34

Forests cover approximately 44 % of the total landmass of the EU (Eurostat, 2020). They are crucial for the mitigation of the climate crisis and the preservation of biodiversity. Forests function as an important public space, especially in cities and their proximity. They offer, as we realized acutely during the Covid-19 pandemic, a necessary space for regeneration and recreation. Forests also provide important local economic resources, and significantly contribute to the cultural identity of many EU member states. However, the forest is also important as a value in and of itself, but forest ecosystems are becoming more and more vulnerable and threatened by the effects of climate change, urbanization, and economy-driven deforestation.

Workshop on the overgrowth of the forest on terraces that were previously used for agriculture, carried out in collaboration with the Biotechnical Faculty and Robida. Topolo, April 2024; Photographs: Elena Chirila, Urška Jurman, Mateja Kurir, Tim Gerdin.

Forest Encounters, European cooperation project (2023–2025), explores and proposes diverse imaginaries, concepts, and practices around the questions: What and how can we learn with and through the forest? What are and could be human encounters with forests? How can we better coexist with the forest? What role art and culture can play in this? What kind of forest do we wish for and need in the future? What do we need to make that happen?

Exhibition by Polonca Lovšin, Forest in Women’s Hands and Mushrooms at the End of the World, at the gallery of the Slovenian Forestry Institute. December 2023; Photographs: Domen Pal.

The growing urgency of the environmental and climate crisis forces us to rethink our relationship with forests. The Forest Encounters project acknowledges both the human and other-than-human perspectives, the rights of humans to nature and the rights of nature and – through artistic research projects, workshops, storytelling, symposia, publications, and exhibitions – aims to contribute to a more inclusive and close-to-nature future.

Forest Encounters Symposium led by Urška Jurman and Mateja Kurir, with guests: Teo Hrvoje Oršanič, Maja Simoneti, Borbala Soos, Agata A. Konczal, Ana Kučan, Giovanni Aloi. December 2023; Photographs: Nada Žgank.

Partners: Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, Ljubljana (lead partner); Institute of Spatial Design, Faculty of Architecture, Graz University of Technology; and OUT OF SIGHT, Antwerp.

In the podcast, we host Polonca Lovšin, an architect and artist, and Mateja Kurir, a philosopher, researcher, and editor, two of the three participating authors from Slovenia, who were joined on the project by Urška Jurman, an art historian and sociologist of culture.

Polonca Lovšin, Urška Jurman, and Mateja Kurir; Photograph: authors’ archive.

This episode of the Odprto podcast was prepared by Boštjan Bugarič.

Listen to the space, listen to the podcast Odprto!

All episodes of the podcast Odprto.

The Odprto podcast in 2024 is co-financed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Spatial Planning.