Forest Encounters

The Forest Encounters: Building New Narratives for our Greener Future explores and proposes diverse imaginaries, concepts, and practices around the questions: What are and could be human encounters with forests? What and how can we learn with and through the forest?

The project is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between partners from Slovenia, Austria, Belgium, and beyond, and aims to develop a multifaceted understanding of diverse values, meanings, challenges, and perspectives related to forest. Bringing together the disciplines of art, forestry, and the humanities, the project approaches the forest as a site where we can explore ecology but also as a site of diverse and often conflictual policies, and social, cultural, and economic practices.

Forests cover approximately 44 % of the total landmass of the EU (Eurostat, 2020). They are crucial for the mitigation of the climate crisis and the preservation of biodiversity. Forests function as an important public space, especially in cities and their proximity. They offer, as we realized acutely during the Covid-19 pandemic, a necessary space for regeneration and recreation. Forests also provide important local economic resources, and significantly contribute to the cultural identity of many EU member states. However, the forest is also important as a value in and of itself, but forest ecosystems are becoming more and more vulnerable and threatened by the effects of climate change, urbanization, and economy-driven deforestation.

The growing urgency of the environmental and climate crisis forces us to rethink our relationship with forests. The Forest Encounters project acknowledges both the human and other-than-human perspectives, and, through artistic research projects, workshops, storytelling, symposia, publications, and exhibitions, contributes to a more inclusive and close-to-nature future.

Igor Zabel Association

(Leader) Ljubljana

All projects of Slovenian producer

Foreign producers in the supported project

Inštitut za prostorsko oblikovanje Fakultete za arhitekturo Tehnične universe (AT), (partner)

Austria (EU)
OUT OF SIGHT (partner)

Belgium (EU)

Funded projects

Open House Europe (OHEu)

Third Stage

VERSOPOLIS – WHERE POETRY LIVES

Uncomfortable Beings, Azra, Best Imaginary Friends Forever

LINA - Learn, Interact, and Network in Architecture

Reactivating unused urban spaces through architecture and arts (ReCITYing)

Art Nouveau: a new EUtopia

Creative Industries Development Centre (KUL)

Web 3.0 Accelerator for Sustainable Cultural Tourism (Web3Tour)

Studiotopia: Enter the Symbiocene with Arts and Science (Studiotopia 2)

Bio Awakening - developing bio-art practices in Western Balkan

TestArt

GREENSTAGE

Climate Art Fusion Caravane (CARAVANE)

Connecting Emerging Literary Artists (CELA)

Cultural BEES

Transmedia stories of insularity (TRAST)

Female Digital Creativity (FLUX)

Planet Hope (New European Fiction) (PH)

More than a Story (MTaS)

Our Little Library: Through literary bridges to reading adventures (OLLLB)

Connected with Books (CWB)

Operation Nova

Moving Balkans

Exploring Expanded Publishing: EX-Pub

Thinking Publishing (ThinkPub)

Novel Europe (NovelEU)

REVIVE

Temporama: Mini Slate 2023

Studi Virc: Mini Slate 2023

The 10th and 11th edition of FeKK - Ljubljana Short Film Festival

The 20th and 21st Kino Otok - Isola Cinema International Film Festival

20. and 21. ANIMATEKA International animated film festival

Film in Hospital 2.0

EU Youth Cinema: Green Deal 2024-2026

Cinema without barriers (CWB)

Literary Agent Platform: Capacity building (LAP CB)

Tramal Films Mini Slate 22 (TFMini22)

Vertigo Slate 2022: Chestnuts, Memory of Autumn Mists, OHO, Splashing around

Staragara slate 22

Our Little Library: Literary exchanges

Testing Ground (TestG)

Better Live

Variola - Dark Spring TV series

SEMA

Paradiso

Leave the door open

The Big Green

The Long Way Down

New approaches for local media (NEWLOCAL)

Life Long Burning – Futures Lost and Found (LLB3)

Time For Live Art (LIVETIME)

Our Little Library: Literary Exchanges

Women Power in Comics (WOMCOM)

Movement, Digital Intelligence and Interactive Audience (MODINA)

Fortissimo. An interactive digital tool that brings kids closer to classical music (FF)

Spring Cleaning

Animation Festival Network

CulturalDeTour - Sustainable Cultural Tourism by Design Driven Innovation

Building the future of democracy through art, science and technology (EUDigitalDeal)

The Museum of the Commons. Towards a Healthier Arts Ecosystem (MoC)

ACT: Art, Climate, Transition

Baths, gothic churches and miners’ houses

Fake Lies

THE FILM CORNER RELOADED - A CULTURAL APPROACH

CINEMINI EUROPE

FC Freedom

Body

Movies in Motion

Voix de la Poesie Europeenne

Trust me, I'm an artist

The Faces Behind the Nose - Promoting Hospital Clowning as a Recognized Genre of Performing Arts

SYMBOLS - Culture of Death& Cultural Life: New audiences and creations around European Cemeteries!

SWICH - Sharing a World of Inclusion, Creativity and Heritage

SPECTRUM 14|15

Small Size, Performing Arts for Early Years

Performing the Museum

Masters & Servers: Networked Culture in the Post-Digital Age

HEROES WE LOVE. Ideology, Identity and Socialist Art in New Europe