(Re)learning tree-time
Losæter, Oslo, Norway | Spring & Autumn 2024
‘We are all grandchildren and we are all ancestors’, Julia Whaipooti, Maori lawyer & children’s rights campaigner.
‘I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past’, Maori proverb.
‘We do not inherit the land from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children’, Apache saying.
‘trees teach us about life at the speed of wood.’
Richard Powers, novellist.
ABOUT THE COLLABORATORS
Liselli is a French-Trinbagonian artist and scenographer based in Norway. Her practice is both narrative and participatory in nature. She has a background in scenography for Film & Television and has started an MFA in Art and Public Space at the National Academy of Arts, Oslo. She uses storytelling as her framework to find the meeting place(s) between narrative and world-building, and uses her visual storytelling skills inherited from the film industry to create perspectives for imagining sustainable futures in collaboration with other humans and different-from-humans.
Zoe is a British Interdisciplinary Designer and professional Arborist living in Oslo. She studied Sustainable Design at Brighton University, graduating with ‘Hunter Gatherer in the Anthropocene’ - a project that became a manifesto for her professional practice. Her work is narrative based, employing animism and material innovation to create objects that trigger dialog and actions around cultural and environmental challenges. She is an advocate for resourcefulness, collaboration, the power of humour and re-wilding the design process.
MARI JERSTAD
Mari has qualified in organic agriculture and has a BSc in Herbal medicine. She is the herbal contact point at Norwegian Association of Natural Medicines and herb guild leader in KVANN, Norwegian seed savers. She works in the garden and in her clinic, as a herbal storyteller and has courses to share her knowledge of herbology and natural medicine. She is also part of URTEALLIANSEN at Losæter.
ELIANA VERO
Eliana is a sculptress and an interior designer who, for over a decade, has been working with interior and urban spaces. Her interdisciplinary work includes art installations, murals, recycling sculpture, photography and restoration. The result is an interesting portfolio that brings together knowledge and imagination. In her own words, she studied science but chose art to understand the alchemy of materials.
Losæter is a modern park with edible plants and a vibrant community and was established as early as 2011 as an art project. The park has grown over the years and today the area consists of fields with traditional grains and an abundance of various vegetables, living soil, compost, pallet collars, a public baking house and a number of activities under the auspices of the City Farmer, a baking community (Bakelauget), a horticultural therapy project, Herligheten allotment collective and several others. It is part of Bjørvika Utvikling public art program, and it is commissioned and produced by Bjørvika Utvikling in collaboration with the international art collective, Futurefarmers.