Terrestrial University: Visualizing Forest Ecosystems | Yvonne Volkart, Rasa Smite, Arthur Gessler and Kaisa Rissanen

Critical Zones | Terrestrial University


[16.09.2021]


What are volatile particles? How can we measure and feel them?
And why do we experience a fragrant forest as a consequence of
climate heating?


In their 3D installation »Atmospheric Forest«, which is on show
in the »Critical Zones« exhibition, artists Rasa Smite and Raitis
Smits focus on the phenomenon of volatile emissions from trees
and their visualization. In the course of their collaboration
with the Swiss Federal Institute of Forest Snow and Landscape
Research (WSL), they learned that under the regime of climate
change, certain trees not only transform CO2 into oxygen, they
also emit various gases into the atmosphere: forests breathe.
Based on this artwork, this issue of »Terrestrial University«
engages with in-depth scientific and artistic research on
fragrant forests, taking the Pfyn forest in the Swiss Alps as a
case study. This 10,000-year-old forest in the Valais,
southwestern Switzerland, is unique: its state of crisis has been
caused by the local aluminum industry and by drought exacerbated
by climate change over the past 100 years. As one of the first
long-term outdoor laboratories, the Pfyn forest has been closely
monitored for more than 20 years.


The project partners talk about tools, methods, and the scale of
fragrant forests affecting climate change together with the
question of how art can translate the invisible and alarming
interactions between the forest and atmospheric ecosystems into
an experienceable environment confronting people with the
imperative necessity of system change.


»Atmospheric Forest« is part of the
»Ecodata–Ecomedia–Ecoaesthetics« research project (2017–2021),
which is carried out by Yvonne Volkart (lead), Marcus Maeder,
Rasa Smite, and Aline Veillat in collaboration with Arthur
Gessler, Christian Ginzler, Andreas Rigling, the Swiss Federal
Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), and
Kaisa Rissanen, University of Helsinki and funded by the Swiss
National Science Foundation and hosted by the Academy of Art and
Design (FHNW) Basel.