Contaminated Landscapes. Forest as a Witness
2026-03-15 – 2026-03-15
curators: Zofia nierodzinska and Susanne Prinz
Kunstverein am Rosa Luxemburg Platz
'Contaminated Landscapes: The Forest as a Witness' is a roundtable and workshop exploring the forest as a subject for curatorial, artistic and scientific research.
Austrian writer and translator Martin Pollack coined the term ‘contaminated landscapes’ to describe areas of Eastern and Central Europe that have been shaped by a violent history. From this perspective, landscapes are not sentimental retreats, but living archives of memory: the past lies in the soil and stones, the future in buds and shoots, and the present in a fragile symbiotic relationship. The forests that characterise many of these landscapes appear as complex symbolic-material ecosystems – as witnesses to history, sometimes as accomplices and often as places of refuge.
The upcoming afternoon is intended as a roundtable and a place for open discussion and will therefore take place without an audience. From different perspectives, we will all work on the theme of the forest as an ecologically and historically burdened reality, as well as an archive or an idea. This exchange should serve to see to what extent our themes and approaches converge or productively clash.
The idea for this workshop arose as a result of a panel discussion at the WY Gallery in Łódź as part of the exhibition project KRES, which was supported by the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation, and the informal event series Samla Skog – Gathering Forest in Bernshammar (S) and at the Kunstverein.
We hope that our discussions will also enable us to take a further step towards planning a larger international project with, in, and about the forest in its material and symbolic contexts. It is all the more gratifying that we are coming together from Poland, Germany and Sweden to continue thinking in this direction.
Programme:
Sunday, March 15th, 2026, 17:00h ct
A Method of Remembering
· Jens Soneryd writes, performs, edits, curates, collects plants, teaches, and develops design concepts. The reading reflects on the extent to which the act of naming may render something present, attest to its existence, or sustain its remembrance. In this way, the reading will open the conceptual space for our subsequent discussion.
Group 1. Thinking with the Forest
Susanne Prinz, curator and art historian, will speak about SAMLA SKOG / GATHERING FOREST, a cross-disciplinary project in which the forest functions as archive, sensorium, ecosystem and—above all—as a form of social memory. (German / English)
Zofia nierodzińska, artist, curator and researcher, will reflect on Martin Pollack’s notion of “contaminated forests” in relation to her hometown of Łomża in eastern Poland. (English)
Christl Mudrak, artist and researcher, will present just the forest research platform, a multi-year art and research project founded in 2025 just outside Berlin. (English)
Group 2. Landscapes in Deep Time
Vanessa Gravenor, artist and researcher, will address militarisation and landscape through a video contribution. (English)
Aleksandra Janus, researcher and anthropologist, will discuss her work on remembrance and social justice. (Online, English)
Anna Siekierska, artist and activist, will present the project I Miss You, Auroch Cow, which raises critical questions concerning nature conservation in the Anthropocene: the notion of the “endling”, the restoration of extinct species, wildness, and the capacities of ecosystems. (English)
Henrik Strömberg will speak about his process of artistic production and the ways in which studio practice relates to the concept of compost and feeds back into the life of the forest. (English)
Group 3. Situated Forests
Ulrike Gerhardt, art researcher, will present landscapes of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) within the framework of an art video project. (Online, English / German)
Martin Geschicht will discuss his memory-detection project on Berlin’s Kreuzberg and briefly introduce in Zukunft Zukunft (science and landscapes), a project situated on an agricultural field near Cottbus. (German)
Kasia Hertz, artist, researcher and activist, will speak about the Białowieża Forest as a complex socio-ecological system. (English)
Another Method of Remembering
Linda Soneryd, sociologist, will discuss the method of collecting witness statements as testimonies of both emotional and factual loss, and the possibilities of preserving such memories, drawing on the example of forest loss in Sweden. (English / German)
