Seminar 2: 14 - 17 January 2025

Particle Sensing
For the second meeting in Nida, the COOP investigates smallest particle compositions and traces within forests to interpret environmental and sociopolitical inscriptions. This session intertwines field encounters with student-led exercises, testing the dynamics of collaborative work while engaging with the study focus. 

The session highlights three key sites where traces on molecular scale reveal layered histories: the paraffin-polluted coastline at Nida, encountered during a walk led by researchers Léa Perraudin and Iva Rešetar; the Aukštumala Raised Mire, where ecological and extractivist histories converge at a granular level also Rusnė, a town on the Skirvytė river that marks a second encounter with the Russian border; and the Red Forest surrounding the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant - introduces a broader reflection on multi-decadal radiation exposure as an enduring forest inscriptions. 

The sites brought into focus reflect the entanglements of ecological processes, industrial histories, and political borders, offering varied perspectives on the molecular archive embedded within (de-)forested landscapes, where environmental and geopolitical transformations are inscribed on the smallest scales. The programme incorporates pre-prepared exercises proposed and guided by student groups, interweaving these articulations of participants’ practices with the session’s focus on optics to sense inscriptions on molecular scale. By delving into the often-invisible particle traces left by natural processes and human intervention, the session encourages participants to approach the forest as a living document that records transformations at the smallest scale, leaving impact across broader temporal and spatial dimensions.

TUESDAY, 14 JANUARY
MORNING
Welcome, Audit Reflections, Confluence plan
Exercise by Sanna, Dimitris, Nanna Part 1 

AFTERNOON 
Walking Along Paraffin Pollution at Nida Coastline with Léa Perraudin and Iva Rešetar

EVENING 
Reading / Film screening

WEDNESDAY, 15 JANUARY 

MORNING + AFTERNOON
Visit of Aukštumala Raised Mire and Rusnė, a town on the Russian border, marked by the Skirvytė river
Exercise by Erik, Stellar, Magdalena

EVENING 
Reading / Discussion

THURSDAY, 16 JANUARY 

MORNING
Exercise by IIja, Sophie and Foad

AFTERNOON
Nuclear inscriptions at the Red Forest surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant 

Conversation with Oleksiy Radinsky and screening of his documentary film "Chornobyl 22”

Presentation by Yuliia Prokopuk and Maksym Netsvetov on their research of radioactive contamination of wood

EVENING 
Film Screening

FRIDAY, 17 JANUARY 

MORNING
Exercise by Sanna, Dimitris, Nanna Part 2 

AFTERNOON 
Collaborative Editing

EVENING 
Preparing for Nicosia

Seminar 1: 10 - 12 December 2024

The first confluence of the COOP study group FOREST INSCRIPTIONS is an introduction to each other's practices and an opening of a year’s shared trajectory of a study and a collaborative work that will draw and reflect on two specific sites – Nida and Nicosia. These entanglements of wider geographies are locations where the decisive geopolitical processes may be sensed through reflections and investigations of their environments while dwelling on the notions of forest as construct and forest as witness. 

The meeting unfolds through sharing each other’s practices through presentations prepared individually prior to the meeting in the form of an Atlas – an arrangement of items in one image. Each participant of the study prepares an Atlas composed of several elements that represent their practice and tools they work with in reflection to the COOP’s study focus on FOREST INSCRIPTIONS. The Atlas includes images, sound, video or other formats brought together in a 15 min presentation to offer a multitude of entries into ones’ work opening it to others. 

TUESDAY 10

MORNING
Welcome 

AFTERNOON 
Walk in the forests of Neringa

EVENING
Setup for the year, formats and plans

WEDNESDAY 11

MORNING
Walk in the forests of Neringa

AFTERNOON 
ATLAS presentations and discussions

EVENING 
Film screening and discussion

THURSDAY 12

MORNING
Walk in the forests of Neringa

AFTERNOON 
Walk in the forests of Neringa 

EVENING 
Setup for the year