This three-day symposium draws together a wide variety of voices to explore a wondrous heritage of woodland and forest. In celebration of 100 years of forestry in the UK it looks back at the last 100 years and looks forward to the next. We draw on the wisdom of foresters, environmental managers, policy-makers, scientists and other experts; we hear the voices of artists, writers, philosophers and others who wander and wonder in our varied British forests; and we learn from others around the world about their own cultural connections to trees, and the wood that produces some of the world’s most beautiful objects.

This event is producer in partnership with the Royal Forestry Society

Full details are here

with Camilla Nelson and Alex Metcalf

Branching Out explores sound, movement, mark- and language-making exercises with trees to open new dimensions in your creative practice. We will expand your awareness of what human and tree bodies are and do – in and of themselves and in relation to each other – in order to develop new ideas and forms of creative expression with trees. After introducing you to a range of tree-listening, language, mark-making, sound, installation and performance techniques we will invite you to combine two or three methods to trial solo/collaborative works and ideas for sharing and discussion. The aim of these three days is to support you to deepen and broaden your understanding of how trees work and your relationship with them through a creative being-with-trees.

The first evening will be largely introductory, getting to know each other and giving a sense of context. Saturday and Sunday will be intensive workshop days with time to share and reflect in the evenings. Monday offers time to draw on new techniques, experiment and play in a supported environment with the opportunity for one-to-one sessions and a final sharing and feedback before we part ways. Our aim is to offer a range of new approaches and to create a supportive community that will be of continuing benefit to you beyond the three days of this course.

Exercises will encourage participants to think with and through their bodies (and other supportive technologies) to explore the relationship between physical form and gesture, mark-making and writing, sound and speech – between humans and trees. We will use prompts inspired by Tim Knowles and Andy Goldsworthy, the embodied work of Open Spaces and TWIG dances of Malaika Sarco-Thomas, alongside imaginative work with root systems and tree communication networks. All experiments are grounded in Alex Metcalf’s extended Tree Listening research and Camilla Nelson’s in depth study of human language and its relationship with the gesture, sound and mark-making capacity of trees. Join us for a rich three days of working creatively with trees!

Full details at https://artdotearth.org/branching-out/

First Fridays happen (surprise!) on the first Friday of every month, except January. First Fridays is a gathering place for artists or anyone interested in the arts, an opportunity to share food and talk. Each month, after lunch, there is an informal presentation of work in progress by one or two artists who may be local or from far away.

You can check out details on our events listing on Facebook.