Join us for the opening of COUNCIL OF FOREST.
Exhibition at Kullar & Klang, Vännäs, in Sweden!
What would an ancient pine say about deforestation? How does the salmon react to a hydropower plant? Can AI embody the wisdom of a river, a mountain, or a reindeer herd?
Join us for the opening of the exhibition of Council of Forest, an artwork by Nonhuman Nonsense in collaboration with the Vindelälven-Juhttátahkka Biosphere Reserve, funded by Vinnova.
Council of Forest is an interactive installation where visitors are invited to take a seat at the council table and enter into conversation with the forest. Through AI-mediated voices, trees, rivers, lichen, animals, and other inhabitants of the landscape engage in discussion, share perspectives, and deliberate on issues affecting their shared home, such as the green transition, logging, rewilding, and climate change. Humans are not merely observers but enter into a dialogue that explores what it might mean to make decisions with—and not only for—the more-than-human world.
The nonhuman voices of the forest are shaped by interconnected knowledge systems, including Sámi knowledge, local and lived experience, ecological research, and environmental data. They are drawn from research papers, policy documents, and interviews and conversations with people living in and caring for the Vindelälven biosphere area—reindeer herders, forest owners, rewilding organizations, pollinator experts, researchers, and cultural workers, each with their own relationship to the land.
The event will include a short film from a research journey through the biosphere reserve and alive demonstration of Council of Forest.
An experiment in ecological thinking and speculative design—exploring how technology can mediate between humans and the more-than-human world. What does it mean to act in the forest’s best interest? Whose knowledge counts? And what happens when we take nonhuman voices seriously?