Collaborating between Brazil and the UK, Kristina Veasey and Alejandro Ahmed create immersive performances.
Together they explore and capture the experience of forest, using call and response, mirroring birds calling to each other.
They share their perspectives and their different artforms (visual arts and movement). Online and in-person audiences can ‘enter’ the forest using interactive technology. Presented by In Between Time(UK) and supported by the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts (UK) and Panorama Festival (Brazil). This Unlimited International Partner Award 2023 commission is made possible with support from Arts Council England and the British Council.
The Research & Development phase of this project sits well with Kristina’s Slow Art approach to her practice. This intensely layered and in-depth approach is well documented with artwork and blog updates on Instagram.
Immersive installation
Take a walk around the installation in the video below.
Connecting forests and audiences
Capturing The Forest is starting conversations with people about their connection to forests. These conversations help inform our creative work and give us insight into different perspectives. The gifting of Forest Connection Packages aims to start this dialogue and bring participants a greater sense of connection with the Forest. To request a Forest Connection Kit please contact kristina@kristinaveasey.com
Barriers to spending time in forests
Despite the health benefits of spending time in forests, not everyone is able to do this. Here are a few examples of barriers that stop people going to the forest:
- Transport issues
- Chronic ill health
- Barriers arising around disability/mental health/neurodivergency
- Work commitments
- Carer responsibilities
- Living in residential care home
- Being in hospital or hospice
- Feeling unsafe or vulnerable
- Living in a city or nowhere near a forest or woodland
Forest Connection Packages include: clay sculptures on which to grow a moss forest, moss and substrate for planting in, a magnifying glass with which to explore the forest in all its detail, a rainwater atomiser to help with the tending of the moss, some forest pot pourri, a forest scented candle, some wild clay, forest leaves and twigs, and a link to this page which shares a short meditation with binaural beats that aim to emulate the relaxation gained from being in the forest.
Instructions for Planting A Moss Forest
If you have been gifted a Forest Connection Package, this video shows you how to plant your moss forest.
The substrate you have in your package is made up of soil, wild clay and liquid plant food. The video shows moss being planted on the sculpture and in the crevices and holes. You don’t have to stick to planting in the holes, the clay in the soil will help it stick to the flatter areas.
Collect some rainwater/filtered water (moss does not like heavy metals and chlorine in tap water) and spray your moss a few times a day. The moss prefers to take on droplets of water from the air rather than be soaked from the roots. If your moss goes without water it will dry out and ‘go to sleep’. It should start growing again when it gets more water. It likes access to sunlight but not a hot, sunny spot. A kitchen or bathroom window sill works quite well.
Don’t worry if your forest isn’t viable, the tending to it, being aware of it’s life cycle, and our part in that is what makes it interesting. You might also like to try planting seeds or other plants on your sculpture, perhaps grass, or cress, or alpine plants. If watering is something you can’t keep up with, you could try Air Plants. Or if you just aren’t channelling those green fingers, just enjoy the sculpture on its own!
Creating a Forest Aroma
Forest Pot Pourri and scented candle
There are so many wonderful smells in the forest: damp earthiness and wet leaves in the understory, warm and woody tones from tree trunks and bracken, sweet smelling perfumes of spring and summer blossoms, citrussy notes from the pines towering overhead…
Forest smells give our mind a sense of place. The pot pourri and scented candle in your Forest Connection Pack contain essential oils and should help to transport you there. Smells are evocative and aid relaxation, but there’s more to it than that. This video explains more about the science behind feeling good in the forest and why I used these essential oils…
Shinrin Yoku – Forest Bathing
Shinrin yoku or Forest Bathing–
A practice popular in Japan. A complete forest immersion that brings connection with nature and a break from our daily busy lives: the traffic, pollution, technology, constant demands and 100mph stimulation.
Parks in Japan are designed with forest bathing in mind. Paths that lead you through trees, with resting points, allowing you to spend the optimum time in nature to gain long lasting health benefits. Whether you are someone who relaxes through the rhythm of walking, or from being still, taking time to really notice your surroundings and be present is a wonderful way to connect with the living world around us.
Fill your room with birdsong (player below) and examine the leaves and sticks inside your Kit. Feel the textures, observe the colours and connect with the Forest.
One Minute Meditation
This is a one minute meditation. Reconnect with nature wherever you are. Bookmark this page and revisit it any time you need to step away from the stress of the daily grind, or if you are unable to visit a forest in person and are seeking a moment of earthly connection.
The sound accompanying this meditation is made of binaural beats at a frequency of 432 hertz. Binaural beats are reputed to aid relaxation and reduce anxiety.
The animated visuals are created from images of Ancient Yew tree branches photographed at Kingley Vale, East Sussex, overlaid with an acrylic ink image painted using sticks and pine needles as ‘brushes’ in windy, rainy weather in Friston Forest.
Wild Clay
Investigate your wild clay. How does it feel: dry and crumbly, hard and rock-like, soft and squishy? Examine the colours. Can you see the grey of the clay, the orange/pinks of the iron? Drawn from the earth, this clay is made from the plants and animals that went before it. We are all made of stardust; whether fauna or flora, all matter is made of atoms, merely arranged in different combinations. As forest matter decays it is broken down into its base elements: liquids, gases and minerals. Processes like mineralisation mean these elements become rocks. Over time, weathering breaks down those rocks, forming clay. It is a rebirthing of the forest!
Add a little water to your clay to make it malleable. Play with it. Mould it. Shape it. Feel your connection with these elements of forest. Roll it into a worm, or a ball. Press dried flowers into it to leave a trace impression. Stand a small twig in your lump of clay. Whatever you choose to do with it, leave it on your desk/shelf/window sill to dry. Let it be a reminder of your forest experience and a prompt to just stop and take a moment from your busy day.
In Japan, there is a practice of making Dorodango, beautiful polished balls made from dirt. This video shows one I made with wild clay. Perhaps this is something you’d like to try?