From our Open Forest installation in Hietsun Paviljonki at the Research Pavilion #4 exhibition, we organized two hybrid (online and onsite) performative interventions inviting people to join us remotely for a walk at the Hyytiälä research forest, and its SMEAR II station. Some participants joined us from the research pavilion in Hietaniemi beach, some from their laptops at home, while others walked in the research station itself. It was interesting to stretch the possibilities of the pandemic restrictions (masks and social distancing) for both the walks and the exhibition.
Above all we learned quite a lot about the ways different people relate to environmental data, how they understand it and how the imagine it might be. Forest have strong imprint in the imagination of Finns which brings interesting possibilities to expand the boundaries of what forests are and question what counts as environmental data and for whom. A place like the higly instrumentalised SMEAR station does bring forth myriad of questions in this area.
We have a recording of one of the walks for documentation and research purposes, and we are sharing it with you here too. Thanks to all creatures that joined us!