a chorus of ideas / This place now, for later
Chopwell Wood, England
April 2022
a chorus of ideas
a chorus of ideas started as a public reading group in Chopwell Wood in Spring 2022 and evolved to include a bespoke resource library curated by Mia + Eric. The books that were selected have influenced the way we experience and imagine the woods. They have changed how we study the lives and deaths of organisms linked to human social worlds. By sharing these books we hope to create a collective imagining that inspires explorations and ways to better understand the various interspecies relationships in the woods. These are books that could influence the future of Chopwell Wood.
The library was installed in the Friends of Chopwell Wood and Forestry England’s forest classroom for woodland volunteers, staff, and folks enrolled in social prescription programs. People are encouraged to borrow a book. Take it into the woods (or home). Sit and read. Aloud or to themselves. Alone or with others (bugs, trees, and humans…). What effect will reading these books in the woods have on the woods? On people as neighbours to multiple others? Do our voices and thoughts collectively signal to the deer, fungus, and chiffchaff that we are willing to do better? Can we prove to the spruce that their transformation from forest to paper matters? Are we willing to think strangely about ourselves and the woods?
This place now, for later
For over a thousand years Chopwell Wood has been an important place for many species: humans, oak, razor strop fungus, red kite, peacock butterfly, great crested newt, among others. As a plantation on an ancient woodland site, the woods have seen repeated and significant changes, often as a result of human use: industry, sustenance, and recreation. Chopwell Wood will continue to change. Trees will mature, new understories will emerge, different species will arrive, and some will disappear. These changes will be intentionally facilitated by the local community, while others will be a result of the climate crisis. It is important that the forest be documented by the people who know and love this place.
This place now, for later is a collaborative sketch book project! Participants are invited to capture Chopwell Wood as they see it today, tomorrow, or next week. We encourage woodland users to explore their sensory perceptions through drawings, writings, small collections, lists, or maps. We invite them to try sketching trees, mushrooms, or patterns. They might write poems about ferns, letters to pine, or personal reflections. They could make a list of smells, birds they have seen, or the many different sounds they hear in the woods. Maybe they will make a map of their walks, paths worn by deer, red kit flight patterns, or colours. Over time the sketchbooks will fill up, archiving Chopwell Wood as it is now for future generations.
