Documentation Nature interpretation Lab Webinar #1

Continuing the fruitful discussions that started at the symposium "Interpreting, learning and being with natureculture" (April 2024), SCNI performs a series of webinars. The purpose is to continue to further the field of nature interpretation by providing a meeting place for practitioners and researchers. At the webinars we will learn more about and discuss concrete cases and projects where the main ingredient is nature interpretation.

In light of this, we plan to launch a webinar series starting in autumn 2024, providing a platform for anyone interested in natureculture interpretation. Our goal remains to bring together researchers and practitioners, with each webinar featuring a concrete case or project presentation, followed by an open discussion.

Nature interpretation Lab Webinar #1

Foraging and Crafting Knowledge: Going Beyond Walking, Seeing, and Being

It was performed on Wednesday October 16th, 2024

Associate Professor Andrew Butler gave the participants a short presentation on his ongoing project, “Foraging and Crafting Knowledge: Going Beyond Walking, Seeing, and Being.” In the project they ask “what does the landscape offer up, that most of us, even trained observers of the landscape overlook?”

Understanding through direct engagement with the landscape

In this project Andrew and his colleagues go beyond just walking, seeing and being in the landscape to engage with a series of foragings and doings. In order to understand and reconnect to our surroundings we need to directly engage with the landscape.

Being in a site is central for understanding the landscape; to understand the detail, the overlooked, the undesigned and unplanned. Developing intimate connections with a places also help us understand the spontaneous change that characterizes the landscape, change we need to realise we cannot control.

A couple of questions the project asks will draw out interesting practices many nature interpreters already do:

• How can we reframe the weeds, the waste, and the unwanted?

Not only can we use foraging as a practice for developing a heightened understanding of our surroundings, but the gathered material can act as source for our creative profession. What can we create from our surroundings, how can the dandelions be used for weaving baskets, will rosebay willow herb fibres produce a sustainable cordage, are alder cones suitable for making dyes?