REFLECTIONS on SENTIENCE
Cohort Testimonials
Enlightening, Insightful, Grounding, and Heartwarming: Gifts of the Sentient Forest Project Reflections
By Zoë Koivu
The initial Winter 2024 call for applications to participate in the Gifts of the Sentient Forest Project called out to me as being a timely engagement to pursue. I had been on a ten-year journey of daily walks following and photographing the Arctic seasonal spiral as manifested by the boreal forest outside my front door in Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland. I was accustomed to my daily affair with the forest, to being embraced with its sensual ambiance, variable atmosphere, and intriguing energies. I felt ready to understand more about the sublime feelings I regularly experienced, the things that I could not easily articulate, the non-physical-yet-definitely-present encounterable phenomena. Could it be sentience?
Being an active cohort member has confirmed my suspicions that, indeed, I am not the only one aware of the energies of the forest. I was delighted to be among talented, sensitive artists of different life stages and from varying disciplines, nationalities and backgrounds engaging with and portraying in their unique ways forest sentience. I not only gained insight into how others perceive and interact with sentience but also ways of sensing and methods of cultivating creative expression in relation with aspects and elements of the forest. An overview of some of these can be seen in the exhibition catalogue and skills workshops summaries.
For instance, I now think of Annette’s conversations with trees especially when I meet a juniper; Francis comes to mind when I encounter a face in a natural formation, or if I feel a need to don my red dragon boots for energy; I associate Satu with tree stumps, especially with those inverted ones symbolising a conduit between worlds; Hekla’s spell rituals are powerful and remind me of deep connections of myth; sometimes I feel compelled to physically express or imitate a natural formation to manifest a corporeal understanding of it and credit Mara with this; I have more sensual attentiveness to touch and feel of forest textures as Julia so passionately expressed with her melding of moss and hair, as in her exhibition video performance; Mykyta’s deep knowledge and passion for plants and citizen science has been contagious; John’s poetry has activated my imagination to consider life from the point of view of plants; when I happen upon seeds, visually or audially, as in hearing seeds rattling with the wind, I think of Marjo’s work and sensitivities honed with seed collecting; I have been inspired by Mira’s intuitive forest singing to sometimes try to accompany the rhythms and phrasing of the forest with my own voice; Lydia’s story weaving true life themes with imaginal characters and natural elements gives thought to the inspiration of the imaginary; and sometimes I think of Milja when I see an animal or plant and wonder what salient features she would notice in her exquisite portrayal of distinct character; I regularly pay attention to scents in the forest and think to share them with Samin; and I thank Evgenia for her energetic contribution to old growth forests and for her visionary journey into the future and back.
My seasonal noticings in the forest are, for me, ways of sentient relationality, that is, the experience of attending to the resonance, vibrance and intrigue related to the seasonal spiral as manifested through the forest. Allowing myself to be enrobed in forest ambiance helps to attune with sentience – the relational and reciprocal sensory encounter with the spirit of the forest in its plurality. Passionate immersion with the forest nurtures numinous encounters and photographing assists me in noticing fine points during and after. The forest from my perspective is much more than an assemblage of magnificent life-reinforcing trees; it is the entirety from the sky above to the bedrock below and the meshwork of relationality and Interbeing in between. Forests nurture a rich undergrowth and envelop water bodies, all with unique habitats and inhabitants together with their aliveness, their sentience and astonishing ability to flourish.
Reflecting and focusing on matters of forest sentience in my own practice and together with project cohort members has been enlightening, confirming insights and grounding my understanding of ancient forces of the forest.
All images on this page are copyright of the artist Zoe Koivu.
Top: 'Sun’s Whiskers' (Rovaniemi, July 2020). Digital image.
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