Forest Sentience Retreats (2024-25)
In early 2024, applicants from Finland were invited to take part in a two-year project Gifts from the Sentient Forest, co-facilitated by Francis Joy of the University of Lapland Arctic Centre and John C. Ryan of Southern Cross University, Australia, with support from the Kone Foundation’s In the Woods funding program.
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A cohort of 14 artists, writers, and researchers was selected to take part in 2 residential creative retreats per year in 2024 and 2025 in the forests near Äkäslompolo and elsewhere. The theme of the retreats is The Sentient Forest. The guiding question: how can we access forest intelligence and sentience through creative practices? A PDF version of the original Call for Participants is archived here.
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Retreat I (7–9 June 2024, Stenan Majat Ky, Äkäslompolo, Finland) (click here for photos)
Retreat II (6–8 September 2024, Stenan Majat Ky, Äkäslompolo, Finland) (click here for photos)
Retreat III (6–8 June 2025, location to be confirmed)
Retreat IV (5–7 September 2025, location to be confirmed)