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Naomi Lord, July 2024
‘For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.’
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
“When we humanise the world, we may prevent ourselves from understanding the lives of other organisms on their own terms.” When Forest of Imagination 2024 did not receive its anticipated funding, a symbiotic reminder emerged: “There have never been individuals” and “all life-forms are processes not things […] Nature is an event that never stops.”[i]
Ecological imagination is in the fibre of everything. For the last 11 years, Forest of Imagination has invented and reinvented spaces for planet-centric collective imagination, temporarily holding spaces open for hyper-local to international gatherings of creative action. The ephemeral nature of these spaces is essential, allowing the Forest to be responsive to the state of the world. The mycelial network of partners and participation are the diversity that protect the Forest. We may think of a forest as its trees, but “micro-wildernesses exist in a handful of soil.’[ii]
Let’s place imagination and creative production in the metaphor of the forest. When ‘every species of tree tries to procure more space for itself, to optimize its performance, [in this way] it crowds out other species.’[iii] Tree roots are good at tapping resources but when they are scarce, cue fungi partnership networks as ready solution.
Underneath the Forest of Imagination is the mycelial map of its eleven-year history of creative education, agency and action. It is an ongoing story of sustainable and collective creative well-being, confidence, courage, innovation and resilience. Fungi are veteran innovators in "ecological disruption. Their ability [...] to flourish [in] periods of change is one of their defining characteristics. They are inventive, flexible, and collaborative.”
The 2024 resurgence of Forest of Imagination in Bath primarily took place at the Holburne Museum with 125 partners facilitating the Biodiversity Ring and its burgeoning offshoots. It explored mini-forests in moss with Patchlarks, invited visitors to the future reality of food with Bath Community Kitchen, found dreams in dirt and mud with Hannah McDowall and Dave Martin, began a debate with Kilter Theatre at Mother Nature’s Supper Club, became a moving forest with Kidical Mass, and surfaced in digital topographies with Bath Spa University and Adobe.
“Many types of organism have evolved flexible networks to help solve the problems that life presents.” Mycelial networks appear “preserved in the fractures of ancient lava flows.” The 2.4 billion-year-old fossils show “branching filaments that ‘touch and entangle each other’ […] The idea that all things are interconnected [underpins] all systems – from traffic flows to governments to ecosystems – to be a dynamic network of interaction.”[iv] It should come as no surprise then that a co-creative youth-led collective in North West England, Creatives Now, collaborated with Young Green Creators in Bath to respond to Forest needs – the networked thinking and empathic action of ecological collective imagination is strong.
As a satellite organisation, Creatives Now, informed by the Schools Without Walls ethos, contributed funding to the Forest and with that came new avenues of partnership and possibility. In the immediate event, Creatives Now and Young Green Creators produced 'Earth Ballot,' a placard and ballot-box-making activity led by young people and emerging artists. This initiative sparked slow-burn intergenerational conversations as people of all ages crafted pledges for people and planet alongside each other, both supporting the youngest to articulate themselves and inspired by their wisdom. Creative production in Bath returned to Bolton, reformed as an exhibition, and inspired further networked initiatives.
To highlight one more example from Forest ‘24, An-ki from Cia Ortiga presented the universe and possibility in a handful of dust. In a small, labyrinthine tent, the origin and destiny of humanity unfolded, traversing the memory of earth, travelling through forests, boarding ships, and with tea shared in cabins as those gathered marvelled over the potential held in the last seed on earth. It is no accident that the immersive stories told in the Forest connect us to the universal.
"To enter into a partnership with one of the many thousands of kinds of fungi, a tree must be very open—literally—because the fungal threads grow into its soft root hairs [...] the two partners work together [and the fungus] extends the reach of the tree's own roots as the web grows out to other trees [...] And so a network is created". Small contributories are never small in the Forest, its growth sings the song of the dirt acknowledging "there are more lifeforms in a handful of soil than there are people on the planet. A mere teaspoonful contains many miles of fungal filaments." [v]
When an enterprise truly lives its inclusive ethos—everyone is welcome, everything is informed by and invested in ecology, and every child recognised as an artist—the horizons of possibility expand exponentially and plumb beautiful depths. In such an environment, where children's innate creativity can inspire and rekindle adult imagination, the potential for innovative, empathetic community connections and small, impactful acts of change becomes unbounded. Being in the Forest is to kindle action with kindred spirits. Being in the forest is to evolve with it, the bolete mushroom, the great spotted woodpecker and the black-headed cardinal beetle all as resonant as the ancient wisdom of trees and children. Thriving in the forest biosphere is to remember that we are the social security and the systems for positive renewal that we already have in us.
References
[i & iv] Sheldrake, Merlin, Entangled Life (UK: Penguin Random House, 2020)
[ii] Wilson, Edward O., Naturalist (USA: Island Press,1994)
[iii & v] Wohlleben, Peter, ‘The Hidden Life of Trees’, (Ireland: Harper Collins, 2017)
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