#relating forests - Laboratory by NOBA in Norway, Report

#relating forests- Art, Myth and Forest in the Norwegian October

In late October 2025, we gathered in a small town south of Oslo – in Ås, at the edge of a quiet forest. What followed was an immersion: into earth, sound, myth and stillness.
relating forests proceeds from the premise, that forests are co-creators, co-narrators, living beings. The third and final meeting of the project artists took place on the grounds of NMBU university and in the Kinnsåsen forest area – a hill with a lake, pathways and an old cabin that became the shared living and working space for a week.
Working with the Forest
We lived on site, slept outdoors, swam at dawn, walked and listened. We were accompanied by local experts: Jeroen Scheepmaker, certified arborist at NMBU, led a guided walk through the campus as a living arboretum. Håvard Steinsholt, historian and local researcher, told of Viking paths, raven stories and the meanings of place names. Martin Lee Mueller, eco-philosopher, wove together the thinking of Arne Næss and the language of the birch tree in a single breath.
In workshops, we explored ecosomatics, Norwegian folk music and ecophilosophy. Folk musician Lajla Buer Storli taught how voice and tone can build relationships with trees. Eco-philosopher Austra Apsite introduced concepts such as mythos, nasi and poesis. At the heart of it all: the story of Herløg Rishaug, a troll king's daughter who approaches humans – and is rejected. Nature that closes itself off. A narrative that could hardly feel more relevant in an age of climate change.
An Evening in the Forest
On the third day, the project opened to the public. Around 30 people followed a path of lanterns into the forest at dusk. They encountered the Huldra, small woodland spirits, a sound installation made from underground recordings, and a voice reading under the evening sky:
"Ten thousand years ago, the place where you are sitting now lay under water..."
At the end, the whole group sat in a circle of hammocks on the hilltop and sang a lullaby to the forest.

Adults described calm, wonder and a sense of belonging. One person wrote: "It was an ordinary forest for me – now I think it is full of mystical creatures that speak with us."

What Remains
Rebekka Sæter, project lead and artist at NOBA/Vitenparken, described the workshop as a search for lost rituals – rituals that build bridges between people and places. The audience's response made one thing clear: these bridges are needed.
relating forests is an attempt to relearn an old kind of attention – for the rustle of leaves, the sound of a tree, the story of a place. And perhaps, slowly, also for what the forest asks in return.

What happens when the forest stops being a backdrop? This question runs through the entire project relating forests. The artists developed together a practice that resists easy categorisation: it is part theatre, part outdoor education, part ritual, part research – and fully none of these things.

From Representation to Relationship
The point of departure is a deliberate artistic stance: the forest is treated as a co-creator. In the workshops and performances of Rebekka Sæter (NOBA/Vitenparken), Anne-Claire Dromzee and Anne Bouchon (Cultures Eco-Actives), and Luzie Ackers and Marianne Cornil (TheatreFragile), the dramaturgy emerged directly from the place: an unexpected squirrel drawing the eye. Silence ending a sentence. The fading light at dusk marking the end of a path.
This openness to the unplanned is a conscious choice. The artists describe it as a situated, site-specific practice: what takes shape in Kinnsåsen, Norway, cannot be transferred unchanged to any other forest. Each performance is a response to a particular place.
The Body as Point of Entry
Rather than conveying knowledge about nature, relating forests uses bodily experience as the primary access point: touching moss, feeling bark, closing eyes and listening, singing, breathing, walking.
Particularly striking was the use of masks. Initially conceived as a performative device, they became a key perceptual tool. Participants described a narrowed but deepened vision – a sense of permeability between their own body and the surrounding environment. One person described the masked figure of Herløg with these words: "Nature itself was looking at me."
Marianne Cornil (TheatreFragile) captures this shift in her artistic statement: the boundary between actress and character, between ritual and logistics, was consciously inhabited rather than dissolved. Ritual lies in the quality of attention.
Myth as Living Material
Myth played a structurally important methodological role. The local story of Herløg Rishaug – a troll king's daughter who approaches humans and is rejected – served as an open frame through which experience could be shaped. Local experts brought further layers: folk musician Lajla Buer Storli worked with sound and voice as a relational language with trees. Eco-philosopher Austra Apsite introduced myth as "the slow thinning of the landscape." Historian Håvard Steinsholt (NMBU) shared stories of Viking paths and sacred place names, while arborist Jeroen Scheepmaker (NMBU) led a walk through the campus as a living arboretum. The result was a layered web of scientific, poetic and embodied knowledge.
What Changes – and How to Measure It
The transformations were documented through questionnaires for children and adults, developed using frameworks from environmental psychology, transformative learning theory and arts-based audience research. 80% of children thought differently about forests after the experience. Adults described a perceptual shift: one person wrote, "Perhaps the forest is more alive to me now and speaks to me."
Anne Bouchon, project coordinator at Cultures Eco-Actives, sums up the project's ambition: the goal was to create conditions in which resonance can emerge. Silence. Slowness. Uncertainty. Bodies in the forest.

relating forests is co-financed through Creative Europe. Institutions: NOBA /Vitenparken (Ås, Norway) with Rebekka Sæter, TheatreFragile (Germany, Detmold) with Luzie Ackers and Marianne Cornil, Cultures Eco-Actives (France, Embrun) with Anne-Claire Dromzee and Anne Bouchon.