Terrestrial University: Visualizing Forest Ecosystems
Yvonne Volkart, Rasa Smite, Arthur Gessler and Kaisa Rissanen in conversation
- Duration
- 1:35:55
- Category
- Lecture/Talk
- Date
- 16.09.2021
- Description
What are volatile particles? How can we measure and feel them? And why do we experience a fragrant forest as a consequence of climate heating?
In their 3D installation »Atmospheric Forest«, which is on show in the »Critical Zones« exhibition, artists Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits focus on the phenomenon of volatile emissions from trees and their visualization. In the course of their collaboration with the Swiss Federal Institute of Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), they learned that under the regime of climate change, certain trees not only transform CO2 into oxygen, they also emit various gases into the atmosphere: forests breathe. Based on this artwork, this issue of »Terrestrial University« engages with in-depth scientific and artistic research on fragrant forests, taking the Pfyn forest in the Swiss Alps as a case study. This 10,000-year-old forest in the Valais, southwestern Switzerland, is unique: its state of crisis has been caused by the local aluminum industry and by drought exacerbated by climate change over the past 100 years. As one of the first long-term outdoor laboratories, the Pfyn forest has been closely monitored for more than 20 years.
The project partners talk about tools, methods, and the scale of fragrant forests affecting climate change together with the question of how art can translate the invisible and alarming interactions between the forest and atmospheric ecosystems into an experienceable environment confronting people with the imperative necessity of system change.
»Atmospheric Forest« is part of the »Ecodata–Ecomedia–Ecoaesthetics« research project (2017–2021), which is carried out by Yvonne Volkart (lead), Marcus Maeder, Rasa Smite, and Aline Veillat in collaboration with Arthur Gessler, Christian Ginzler, Andreas Rigling, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), and Kaisa Rissanen, University of Helsinki and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and hosted by the Academy of Art and Design (FHNW) Basel.
