Becoming-with the forest is an artistic research experiment that was created as a part of a doctoral dissertation process. The aim of the experiment was to stimulate new thinking for the reorientation of the theoretical and philosophical groundings of environmental art education.
The experiment employed orienteering in local forests as a propositional catalyst that offered ways of becoming entangled in more-than-human relations that are open to multiple ways of being and responding. Inspired by critical and feminist posthumanist theories and more-than-human walking methodologies, the experiment challenged the scholar to think with non-human others and to pay attention to multispecies and material encounters. These experiments resulted in photographs and stories that invite us to imagine relationships with other nature beyond anthropocentric habits.
Exhibitions:
Species, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture Conferment 2025 exhibition, Otaniemi Espoo, June 2025
Kanssalaistumista metsän kanssa [Becoming-with the forest], Pesula Galleria, Sipoo. Solo art exhibition 3.3.2020–22.3.2020
Workshops:
Out to the forests, bogs, and clearcuts – artistic orienteering workshop (invited by curator Ulla Taipale) in Hyytiälä forestry station in 22. –24.9.2023 as a part of Climate Whirl art program
Publications:
Ylirisku, H. (2021). Reorienting environmental art education [Doctoral dissertation]. Aalto ARTS Books, Doctoral dissertations 9/21. https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/items/51f412c0-45be-42cc-b5d3-293918ae9f65
Ylirisku, H. (2021). Ihmiskeskeisyyden haastamisen tärkeydestä ja vaikeudesta. Kasvatus, 52(4), 456–460. https://journal.fi/kasvatus/article/view/112380
Ylirisku, H. (2022). Tiheikön kanssa – Yhteisen ajattelun tunnustelua [With the thicket – Exploring collaborative thinking]. Kasvatus & Aika, 16(3), 163–171. https://doi.org/10.33350/ka.111743
