(German for ‘To the Green Forest’) focused on the origins of the Grunewald in Berlin, whose name comes from a nearby medieval hunting lodge (Zum Grünen Wald). Nowadays, hunts are no longer organised as festive events, and to avoid negative publicity, hunters are not allowed to display hunting trophies in any way. Today, hunting is part of forest management and is carried out to regulate animal population to prevent further damage to the forest. Meanwhile, the rapidly changing climate poses a greater threat to the forest. The once ‘green forest’ is suffering from desiccation, causing widespread die-off of trees. In autumn 2022, I carved a deer antler on site from wood of fallen trees. Conversations with passers-by were recorded and presented together with the completed sculpture in the middle of the forest via a sound work.
Some excerpts from the interviews
“You do notice the change in climate a little bit, don’t you? It’s a day in November today, but it feels like a day in August. And here in front this lake has dried up, that one there, there’s no water and nothing in it anymore, and yes, generally you notice it overall in all the vegetation. I have a garden for example, there are large conifers that completely dried up, nothing more, although these are old trees, nothing to do, already dead. And in central Germany it is even worse, 200 km south of here in Erzgebirge for example. There are forests and they are dead, whole forests.”
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“We are definitely worried and you can definitely see the changes. Fewer insects, species dying. You don’t even have to be an expert for that anymore, you can see it everywhere. Just walking through the forest and then noticing how everything cracks, and these forest fires always, yes of course. And not so many mushrooms anymore, because they just need wetter conditions. You notice it in everything, yes.”
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“I studied climate change management, so my degree was in sustainable development. I’m originally from Pakistan, and the recent floods were terrible. Countries that are not even major emitters of carbon are struggling with the real problems. In Pakistan, there are a lot of glaciers in the north, and when they melt, the whole country is under water. And they are already melting. In the last floods, 30 million people were displaced. They lost their homes and everything. Thirty million is a lot. Can you imagine that almost a third of the population of Germany is without a house?”
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“I grew up in rural Bavaria and back then there were always bugs and other insects everywhere on the ground. And now, when I’m with my mother again, you hardly see any insect. There used to be more earthworms for example, they were everywhere in the village, now hardly anymore.”
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“The trees are not so resistant to pests anymore, for example bark beetles. In the Harz Mountains near Halle, you can see that well, there are quite a lot of problems. The human interpretation is always: “Oh, the forest is completely destroyed by the pests”, but no! The forest is destroyed because of our own actions. So, the beetles come and they clean up, so new trees can grow again. How can one be so stupid? This has been told for decades: “The invasive species in the forest”, as if that was a problem, but no, we are the problem, we are the invasive species !”
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“I don’t know where it was, in Köpenick, I think. There’s a lake and a waterslide. And now, the slide doesn’t come into the water anymore. You just fall on the sand because the water has receded so much.”