What it's all about
Inspiration behind the project
The Lost Museum of Trees uses the creation of contemporary style folk tales to both help improve confidence in literacy and to help build a closer connection to forests and nature. It is intergenerational and inclusive, following the Scandinavian natural blueprint model regarding human interaction with nature, i.e. by first getting people into nature to experience it; then to observe it; and then to start understanding the importance of the natural world. These positive experiences can then help everyone to learn how man affects nature and can be used as building blocks towards conservation
and sustainable living.
The project is inspired by time spent living in Norway and Finland when I was younger where the forest and nature are both very much an important part of their culture. The experience of those years has deeply influenced my work ever since, but it was really the Global pandemic that brought me back to remembering how therapeutic a forest environment can be. For over 10 months we had no centre to work from and the forest was the only place we could meet with students. I realise now that this was when the first seeds of The Lost Museum of Trees project started to grow.
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When I researched our ancient native forests here in Scotland I found that our old native Caledonian pine forests were linked to the Northern Boreal forest biome that goes through Scandinavia, Russia, Japan and parts of North America. I learned that Scotland only had 1 % remaining of the original Caledonian forest left . As well as our forests we’ve lost most of our Forest Culture, and we’ve lost so much of the knowledge of the trees that we once had many , many years ago.
I knew that if we were to get people interested in forest conservation and sustainability that we must first try and reconnect people to the forest, to like being there. Then we would have more chance of helping people understand the importance of these places and be interested in conserving them - so following the Scandinavian blueprint model as a way of engaging with the project made sense to me.
Using the stories has also enabled us to explore some of the climate change issues we are now facing through our investigation and learning about the role trees play in combating global warming.
My experience has been that talking about the climate crisis can be overwhelming and difficult – especially for young people—but researching the topic through the creation of our own stories not only provides a safe, effective way of both exploring the issue, but also of finding our way through it.
Folk tales are amenable tools – they can be enjoyed by a wide range of ages and abilities. They have been around working their magic for a long time and they have so much to teach us and tell us.
Trish Matthews
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Project Co-ordinator For The Lost Museum of Trees
Socially Engaged Artist
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‘We are told that stories are living beings, they grow, they develop, they remember and they change Not in their essence but sometimes in their dress. They are shared and shaped by the land, the culture and the teller. One story may be told widely and differently. Sometimes only a fragment is shared, showing just one face of a many faceted story, depending on its purpose’
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Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults
