Nurturing The Human Forest {In a Post-Digital World}
Closes November 23, 2026
How do we build community despite our ever-growing digital disconnection?
Look for answers in the forest, where unrelated species share sugars, respond to illnesses, and release water during drought to sustain their neighbours. Forestry ecologist Suzanne Simard has spent a lifetime uncovering the secrets of this intricately connected system linking together trees, roots, and fungi. Reflecting on Simard’s discoveries against a human society that tells us to see ourselves as individuals in constant competition, what happens when we start to see ourselves as trees in a forest, helping each other survive? We embrace cooperation, using “forest” as a metaphor for the diverse, multifaceted, and deeply interconnected community we build through our creative practices. Yet nurturing this forest requires navigating the digital landscapes that exhaust us.
Philosopher Florian Cramer describes ‘postdigital’ as a contemporary disenchantment with digital information systems and media gadgets, or a period in which human fascination with them has become historical. Researcher Carlos Escaño expands this through artistic practices that interrogate the interactions between technology and social life, highlighting blurred disciplinary boundaries and material hybridity.
Whether you’re an artist, tech developer, engineer, DJ, curator or innovator, we want to know: how do you nurture the human forest?
Everyone talks about building community, but we want to know: what do you do to make it thrive?
Subthemes:
The Ground Level // Roots
Ecology & Earth: Interconnectedness, caring for the natural world, others, & for the self
Grounded Practice: Staying grounded, keeping peace, & reclaiming social space by questioning systems that keep us disconnected from nature & each other
Dark Matter: Examining the invisible labour – the things no one talks about, the work no one sees, and what gets swept under the rug in art, life & community
The Understory // Trunk
Community Maintenance: Reciprocity, gift economies; and passing on knowledge, skills, gifts & more without expectation of return
Relational Ethics: Cooperation vs. Competition, listening to & uplifting others, gathering with good intentions, moving together, showing up consistently
Visible Intent: Exploring the tangible connections that bring us together through obvious, intentional work
The Canopy // Branches
Technology & Creation: Interacting with the non-human (technological, virtual, etc.) & negotiating creativity with digital media - what do we lose, & what do we gain?
Resilience: Finding resilience in a digital age at the intersection of art, entertainment, community gathering & technology
Singularity in the Canopy: Cultivating individual identity, artistic freedom and autonomy without severing ties to the whole – how can distinct voices & individuals thrive without fracturing our collective coexistence?
What We Are Looking For
Artworks:
We welcome sculpture, installation, motion capture, video, sound, performance and artwork that demands to be experienced as a group or in community. All work will be considered.
Papers & Presentations:
We invite papers, artist talks, and panel presentations exploring group experiences, community maintenance, gift economies, care politics, resilience, gifting & showing thanks, DJs/VJs, art as entertainment, and, most importantly, what are you doing? All submissions will be considered.
Possible Workshops & Interactive Events:
We invite a dynamic range of workshops and immersive group experiences that transform the conference into a participatory space, fostering hands-on engagement and community exchange. We welcome collective art projects & communal installations designed to grow directly within the gallery, as well as nature walks, dance, & group movement sessions that ground us in physical space. Proposals might also feature collaborative formats such as speed-dating-style skill swaps, show & tell trinket/print exchanges, or sound & DJ workshops. Accommodating both focused 90-minute sessions & extended drop-in formats – spanning collage, zine making & collaborative art – these events invite participants to share knowledge, build connections and create together.