Weaving the Feral – Cabinet of Feral Data Curiosities

INSTALLATION & DRIFT by Open Forest Collective

A series of feral data artifacts co-created with more-than-human ecologies of Colombian chagras, Bohemian forests, Croatian wetlands, and the Gunditjmara Country.

2 Nov Thu 18:00 CEST

4 Nov Sat 23:00 CEST

The installation shows Open Forest Collective’s ongoing investigation of feral ways of knowing, being, and living-with diverse more-than-human ecologies.

On display are feral data artifacts such as woven sashes, multispecies tattoos, short dérive films, and an eel trap capturing environmental knowledge and cosmologies of various more-than-human habitats including Colombian chagras, Bohemian forests, Croatian wetlands, and the Gunditjmara Country.

Festival participants are invited to spend time with the artifacts and delve into the stories – of feral cohabitation and care as well as power struggles and structural inequalities – that they weave together.

The Cabinet installation is accompanied by an ongoing participatory dérive inviting everyone to drift with the Petrohradská Kolektiv building, and its shapeshifting more-than-human ecologies.

The Weaving the Feral engagements situated in Petrohradská will be followed by an experimental, performative walk with the Křivoklátsko forest guided by the Open Forest Collective member Chewie, as part of the Chewroboros 2023 program.

Open Forest Collective

Open Forest Collective is a multi-disciplinary, multi-species group of creative practitioners and researchers experimenting with feral approaches to engaging with forests and forest data. The Collective's creative activities – experimental walking, drifting, storytelling, and co-creation of feral forest datasets – bring together scientists, artists, citizens, policymakers, Indigenous forest guardians as well as dogs and trees in experiential exchange of their diverse forest experiences and knowledge. The work is distributed across different locations, including (what is known today as) Finland, Australia, the Czech Republic, and Colombia. Current members of the Collective include Andrea Botero, Markéta Dolejšová, Jaz Hee-jeong Choi and Chewie.