Published by ilylali, the artist’s imprint

In myth a forest is a place for journey and self discovery, on the darker hand it is a place of fear, and loss, of confusion and rebellion. To be among the trees is to be in the depths, where rituals take place, just on fringes of the mind. And so they are entangled, dissociated from society. they are places of sleep, and visions. Contemporary forests have become political places. The woods lie in the crux of dispute as initiatives for tree plantings around large cities, occur simultaneously with mass destruction of rainforests and wildfires that spill over California as a result of climate change. While the forests are biomes, they also exist as a concept of population density, connection, biological ecosystems, built upon the stability of trees. Forests have the potential to be resources for us to reconsider how we can live communally and sustainably.

The charge of our creative selves is to take on the retelling of this landscape. While we can’t change the state of the climate and its influence on woodland immediately, we can begin to live with a more healthy relationship to it. This anthology will be a communal attempt to redefine the narrative of a forest.