Bring the sky down to earth
I had the privilege of participating in an exciting interdisciplinary research project a few years ago. My contribution was to create art photographs of different forest environments with a high degree of authenticity.
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Exotics
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Farming
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Old growth forest
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Fertilization
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Hatching
Forests in Sweden are largely managed. A common sight is the effects of clear-cutting, but other types of forestry are also used. In this assignment I share my interpretations of different types of forests and methods of use, ranging from old-growth forest to fertilized spruce forest to exotic tree species, as well as the different methods of use, such as clear-cutting, thinning and untouched forest. The ambition was for the images to be "authentic" in the sense that they convey the experience on site - unfiltered.
The photos were then used in the interdisciplinary research project 'Bringing the sky down to earth' as a basis for group discussions.
The images from this project have also been exhibited locally in Umeå and nationally at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm.
Below, a summary by Professor Erland Mårald from the research project website.
Bringing the sky down to earth: how forests can be used to constructively address climate change in local contexts.
Research projects
What exactly is climate? This concept is often associated with a transboundary and intergenerational phenomenon operating 'up in the sky'. It is an abstract concept best understood by experts and managed by politicians at global summits.
In this project, we contribute to "bringing the sky down to earth" and make climate change relevant to people in their everyday lives and climate challenges possible to address in a constructive and inclusive way in local contexts.
Project description
The aim of this project is to investigate how to:
make climate change relevant to people in urban and rural areas,
make it possible to draw up development paths,
develop locally tailored measures to address the climate threat.
To achieve this purpose, the project starts from the forest as a so-called unifying thing and practice that can help link climate as an abstract phenomenon with the local community, and the overall climate issue with local ambitions. In this way, the climate challenge is linked to landscapes and to local contexts and practices, which in turn can produce development paths and measures.
A collaborative process consisting of workshops, excursions and dialogues with government officials and decision-makers has been the core of the project. The process included stakeholders representing urban and rural areas as well as the northern and southern parts of Sweden. We have used visualized scenarios of the local community (with both historical and future perspectives) and based on the participants' visions and views on the challenges, the researchers have developed common development paths. The next step was to let the participants formulate sub-goals as examples of possible climate actions.
The project remains to work out how this new knowledge and the methods for visualizing possible futures can be transferred to other similar situations, especially in municipalities. The project will contribute to strengthening people's ability to identify alternative development paths for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the local community.