Forest Deleted, Förlåt Forever – an act of mourning through textile craft

Abstract

Forest Deleted, Förlåt Forever is an collaborative exam project that centers around the loss of biodiversity in the Swedish forests, and examines how mourning can serve as an artistic approach to deal with those losses. There is an ongoing, polarized debate about forest management in Sweden, depicting a conflict between green technology and economic development, and the protection and wellbeing of forest species. The challenges for humanity are real, but so are the ones for the non-humans. This project is trying to stay with the trouble as Donna Haraway puts it, embrace the friction of our time and address the existential layers of the debate. How are we (as in humans) to live with ourselves and the extinction of species we are causing, and how are we (as in all species) to live on together? By using textile craft as a method, we try to give form to humanity’s ambivalent rela tionship with the rest of the ecosystem. The loss of forest individuals is processed as an act of mourning, which allows us to artistically channel our own feelings and share them with other people. Through hand tufted sculptures and spatial settings we app roach the death of species as a farewell, an act of violence and a chain of production. In the tension between these perspectives our inner conflicts are brought up to the surface; our romantic notions of nature, anger towards the forest industry and guilt for being part of the exploit. Forest Deleted, Förlåt Forever seeks to raise awareness for the forest species, question the hierarchy between humans and non-humans, and create a sense of community for others in need of mourning.