Dir: Thomas Jackson / 2019 / 58mins / Sweden

Australian Premiere

The forest has always served as a playground for art, mythology and fantasies, and as a mirror of man’s own interior. We get to follow artists and activists who talk about how their lives and works were affected by the forest. What is lost in ourselves when the wild nature is forced back, when the experience of being part of a living environment breaks down?

Lars Lerin is a well-known beloved and thoughtful Swedish artist with an intimate relationship to nature in his watercolors. Eirik Havnes is a Norwegian musician who use nature’s own voice in his music, through recording the sound of the ground, tree trunks and mushrooms. The woods are also the focus in Helene Schmitz large format photography, as she explores human’s taming of nature while nature is always evolving. Sápmi artist Britta Markatt-Labba takes us through her “24 metres embroidery”, where the earth mothers want to share their knowledge of nature, which was exhibited at documenta in Kassel.

“As a child I was told about the spirits who lives underground, they are our reflections, who mimic our behavior above ground. But today I have noticed that they’ve gone deeper into the earth. I think it’s because they’re very, very disappointed in us humans. When you drill for new minerals, it’s like you drill holes in the hearts of the spirits of nature.” – Britta Markatt-Labba

Melbourne Design Week Film Festival curated by Richard Sowada