Into the Woods: Exploring Art, Nature, and Technology with Global Forest

Kunstverein Global Forest is an art association that organizes various events –from exhibitions, lectures, and symposiums, to workshops and festivals. The non-profit association was established with the aim of creating a permanent venue for contemporary art in St. Georgen in the Black Forest in Germany. Olsen and Irene are part of the founding team. The aim of Kunstverein Global Forest is  to combine contemporary art with local traditions and communities. In parallel to its residency programme for national and international interdisciplinary artists, Global Forest has developed various formats, each focusing on a distinctive aspect of the region. The goal of providing cultural diversity to the region is achieved through trust in collaborations between artists, locals, and regional arts and cultural institutions.

Due to the rich industrial history of St. Georgen, the Global Forest Art Association focuses on the intersection between visual arts, technology, and experimental music, while remaining open to new genres. Global Forest traditionally hosts the annual Vogelklang Soundcamp, an art festival held in the Black Forest, featuring various installations, performances, and immersive activities. The festival, taking place from May 4th to May 5th, partners with the International Dawn Chorus Day, inaugurated by environmentalist and broadcaster Chris Baines. The aim of the initiative is to  establish a global acoustic network, by uniting numerous sound camps worldwide within a 24-hour live stream. And so, at the first flush of daylight, with a microphone installed in the woods, Global Forest joins the International Dawn Chorus Day and records the chorus of local birds for the 7th year in a row.

I interviewed Olsen and Irene in order to find out more about their organization, objectives, and the Vogelklang Soundcamp.

Connecting Communities: locally rooted - globally connected 

Julia: Thank you for taking your time. Tell me a bit about yourselves, for example, what is your guys' background? How did you get involved with Global Forest?

Irene: We both are artists. We were living and studying in London, where we also met. I did my master in fine arts at Goldsmiths in London. After his PhD, Olsen joined the Global Forest project. After participating in a residency in Cologne, I started to get involved with Global Forest. Since 2018, we have been living here. Global Forest is not our personal artistic work, it's a project in which both of us, alongside other team members from diverse backgrounds, are involved in. I think it's very important for Global Forest to have international artists coming here. For me, the best thing about Global Forest is to have international artists living here, share time with them and to have them engage with the region. Right now we have Kirstine from Denmark and Carla from Argentina staying at the residencies. The residencies combine contemporary art with local traditions, which is quite special, and the local community is very curious about the perspectives provided by the artists. 

 Olsen: As Irene already said, I came here because I grew up in this region, in the Black Forest. But I was away from Germany for more than 20 years and lived in various places. The last one was London. I coincidentally happened to learn about this place at a party where we all came together. And we decided to take the initiative and founded this association. It was founded by a group of 8 to 10 people with various backgrounds, turning it into an association and starting to invite artists to come here. I think the challenge is to combine the traditional environment with contemporary art. But this is also where you get, let's say, more poetic approaches. Additionally, you discover the openness of people. For me, because I grew up here, I never thought that things like this were possible in this area. We are, for instance, in touch with companies and other organizations, and we encounter a general openness when collaborating with artists. People are curious about how they think and what approach they take on this region. And this basically became our main thing: Art For The Region or ‘Kunst für die Region’ in German. We invite artists to interact with organizations, institutions, and people; or more generally, the local culture. 

Irene: There are associations with long traditions around here, for example historical associations and museums that provide various research opportunities across diverse fields.

Olsen: So many of our artists do collaborations with institutions. For example, for the Vogelklang soundcamp, the artists collaborate with the Max Planck Institute in Radolfzell. Other artists have been working together with the Phonomuseum or the Association of Local History. 

Irene: The Clock industry was very important here as well. There are many Clock Museums and many Cuckoo Clocks. This is maybe also why time is a topic that always comes up in the artists’ work. 

Olsen: Additionally, there was a significant presence of the music industry in this area, particularly in Sankt Georgen. Dual and PE, Perpetuum Ebner, two big companies producing record players, were based here, but they both went bankrupt in the early 90s. However, there is still the Deutsches Phonomuseum, and of course everyone knows about this industry since the majority of people use to work there. This is how the town was apparently one of the wealthiest towns in Baden-Württemberg in the 80s. They produced 6,000 record players a day. This is why we also have a slight lean towards sound art.  

Julia: You said that you like working in an international environment. Do you think group dynamics change when you have internationals with different backgrounds working together in a small regional place? For example, by working closely together with local people who live in the Black Forest or with the institutions around here. 

Irene: I think this town is very welcoming to international people, especially because there is a history of migration since the 1800s, when foreigners arrived to build big train tunnels in the region. There are still large Italian and Spanish communities, and I'm Spanish. I have felt welcome here since the beginning. These communities established themselves due to many people relocating here in the 80s to join the workforce of local businesses, mostly for the record player companies, but also for clock factories. Sankt Georgen is an international town to begin with, because it's a mix of different cultures and people. A lot of refugees from many countries live here that we try to integrate, for instance, in our Kids Workshops.

Artist Selection and Community Engagement 

Julia: So, this place is very international, and it must be important for you guys that people participate in what you are doing, that you bring them together. You also invite artists over to stay at your residency for a while. I think it is interesting to know how you select artists. What is important for you when you select someone for example what criteria do you have, or what media do you prefer?

Olsen: We tend towards having a jury and making open calls where we invite people to apply. For instance, for the Vogelklang Festival that takes place at the moment, we had almost a hundred and twenty applications, and the jury consisted of six people, who then selected the artists. The criteria are mainly based on how the artist’s work fits into the program and how it interacts with the region and the festival in general. And, of course, how their work is conceptually rooted in this area.

Irene: So, for example, Carla was proposing a workshop and installation, and Kirstine was submitting a multi-channel sound installation. We aim to always choose something that offers a diverse range of artistic approaches. It was not easy to come to a decision, because there were a lot of applications. I think it was more difficult this time because Vogelklang keeps growing. I hope we can continue with it next year because the funding this year hasn’t been easy.

Navigating Challenges and Aspirations

Julia: If it's hard to run this place momentarily, how do you work around it? Is there something you have to compromise on while organizing the Vogelklang festival? For example, did you have to limit something or cut it out completely?

Olsen: Initially, the residencies were meant to last for three months, but we had to cut them down to one month. The funding this time was more like a patchwork. The previous years we always had one bigger funding with smaller donations next to it. But this big funding got rejected this year due to the amount of applications they received. This resulted in us having to do this ‘patchwork’ with smaller donations which takes a lot of time, regardless of their size. But we are happy that we could make it happen. We did emergency meetings and were able to find someone. This allowed us to commit to the artists and make sure the festival could take place.

Irene: But the fact that we live here, as artists, we are very involved, it's a lot of voluntary work, and a team that you can rely on is essential.

Julia: It shows that you really stand behind this project. What do you hope to accomplish with it? What are your goals and motivations to keep going with all this even though it's so hard for you at the moment.

Irene: The goal is to institutionalize further and keep the dialogue with politicians about what we are doing, on the communal as well as the federal level.

Olsen: We got patronage from the regional council here in the area. The district president of this region, Carsten Gabbert, became the patron of our project because what we are doing is much appreciated by the council. It’s kind of a lighthouse project showing how cultural diversity can be promoted in rural areas to make them more attractive. These are all political matters, which we as artists are not so much into. I would rather focus on the creative content, but it's also interesting to learn about these things and the political background to run an institution like this. Being able to pay the artists is maybe our main goal. We've been visiting other residences where you have to pay to go there.

 Luckily, there has been a lot of improvement on that notion at the federal and state level, not only since the pandemic.

Nature and Creativity

Julia: What I also think is really interesting is the fact that your residency is so connected to nature. How does it differ when an artist works in a rural area, compared to them working in an urban setting? How do you think nature and art relate to each other in that sense?

Irene: Well, we’re located on a hill surrounded by a forest. That's why, for example, Kirstine is here right now. Coming from Berlin, she enjoys solitude and being surrounded by nature.

Olsen: I think that the room downstairs, where the artists work, contributes to this environment. It's a 200 square meter space. It used to be the former studio of Martin Kippenberger, who is the most famous person who's been using it. But a lot of other artists have been there as well, it's very big with a lot of windows and a view of the forest. As Irene said, the artists come from the cities, since they really like getting some silence. Of course, the bird festival is also very related to nature. Other projects like the RESERVOIR festival at the Linachtalsperre dam here also take place in nature. But these projects are not so focused on nature, they concentrate more on architecture or technology, which are other important aspects about this area.

Irene: The artists have their own room, and they have this big studio space to share, which is very quiet. We also do excursions to interesting places that are relevant for the projects the artists are pursuing.

Olsen: If the artists want to produce something special, we always find people to connect them to and provide what they need. Additionally, if they want to research more about one of their projects, there is always someone we can connect them with.

The Vogelklang Soundcamp: Exploring the Intersection of Art, Humanity, Nature and Technology

Julia: Can you tell me about the Vogelklang Soundcamp? How did you get involved in it? I think it's also a very interesting concept, especially since you guys are so close to nature.

Olsen: I was studying in London, and one of my colleagues, Dan Stowell, who also visited us last year during the festival, is an expert in machine learning. He first started out as a beatboxer, but he is good at everything related to machines and sounds, especially bird sounds. One day he said that there is a festival in Staff Hill Ecology Park in London, and he wanted to know if I wanted to come along. It was a very inspiring experience for me, since we were in the middle of southeast London, where people constantly come and go. And then there is this global network of soundcamps, the REVEIL Project, broadcasting continuously from locations where birds are singing at dawn. This creates a 24-hour bird choir that travels around the world with the sunrise. When the association here with Global Forest started, I thought it would be nice to join from the Black Forest. So we started with 30 people. The first time in 2018 it was such a warm night we sat at the fireplace only wearing shorts and making pizza until late. The year after, it was again at the beginning of May, we had around 10 cm snow. During the pandemic, the festival took place online. We handed out workshop kits, which people could come and pick up, and provided online courses, lectures and performances, which were met with great respect. For three years, the festival has been outside again at a location nearby. It's ideal, since it is in the middle of the forest with huts and a gastro kitchen for cooking. This year we expect around 400 people, depending on the weather.

Irene: The place is a campsite on a big forest clearing. There is a main house for the events big enough to host the audience even under difficult weather conditions.

Julia: Since the festival has been going on for a few years now, how do you think it has evolved over the years?

Olsen: The festival got more popular. But we have also evolved content-wise. I would say, the transdisciplinarity of the festival has been constantly growing. We have been inviting different scientists, for example, from the Max Planck Institute, since we have been collaborating with them for a long time. Two years ago, we invited Sandra Muller from the Biological Institute from the University in Freiburg, who works on soundscapes, which was very interesting. We always try to have a good mix of people from different disciplines which give the festival its particular flavor. For instance, Jeremy Wasser is an animal physiologist and an opera singer. There are a lot of workshops for kids, so the ambience is quite kids and family friendly, but we also integrate older people. Apparently the elderly have a lot of stories to tell about birds, since they like to watch them. They also like to engage in conversation about the dialect with people who speak it, or are new in this area and are curious to learn about it. Simone Rosenfelder from the Max Planck Institute is doing a workshop that focuses on artificial intelligence and its role in science. Students from the University of Furtwangen (HFU) also collaborate with us.  We try to have a good mix of everything. The festival started as an interdisciplinary project, and we try to expand it every time. It's not about growing, but more about just keep going with the same vibe.

The conversation with Kunstverein Global Forest’s Olsen and Irene has offered me a fascinating glimpse into the innovative intersection of contemporary art, nature, technology, and community engagement within their organization. Through a diverse array of events such as the annual Vogelklang Soundcamp, they have created a platform for both national and international artists to interact with the local community. The Vogelklang Soundcamp exemplifies the commitment of Kunstverein Global Forest to creating synergies between art, nature, and technology, which is reflected in the way how the festival fuses together installations, performances and workshops in order to celebrate the dawn chorus of local birds. It provides a transdisciplinary environment, inviting not only artists but also scientists, the elderly, and students, to build a dynamic community that supports the exchange of creativity and knowledge. 

Despite challenges like funding constraints, Olsen and Irene remain steadfast in their dedication to Global Forest's mission. Their aspirations to institutionalize the project and secure sustainable support stems from their long-term vision of making contemporary art accessible and impactful within the rural community. Moreover, their emphasis on compensating artists and creating a supportive environment underscores their commitment to nurturing artistic talent and innovation.