A Forest Dream
2023
Hisarönü Köyü, Marmaris / MUĞLA
A Forest Dream is a project dedicated to approximately 200,000 hectares of forest area that burned in the summer of 2021. During the week-long fires, the local public watched their forest slowly burn to the ground. Sometimes they had to evacuate their homes when winds changed direction, moving the fires and the smoke towards their village, and sometimes they stood guard alone to protect their dwellings. While they received many volunteers from all over the country to help them during this time, they were left with dead trees in the aftermath of the war.
During these fires, the traces of life that spanned generations under the protection of the same forest disappeared, and millions of plants and animals perished. The locals see the forest as a memory space and a livelihood, making its loss a huge trauma on many levels.
Through experience sharing gatherings, talks and workshops on the relationship between body and nature between the women of three most affected villages in Marmaris, namely Hisarönü, Bayır, Osmaniye, the “Forest Dream” project aimed to create a farewell ritual for the forest as well as composed a song to celebrate new growth.
The ritual and the song that was created as a result of this collaborative creative project was performed with the participation of local women to the public at a damaged forest site. The performance aimed to create an alternative relationship between ourselves and the forest, allowing mourners whose forest and animals have been lost to find closure and to celebrate the new growth that is emerging everywhere.
This project illuminated the connection between the locals and the forest, as well as their own stories. It also enabled us to critically examine our own complicity in deforestation, to re-discover the importance of forests in our lives, and to mourn after a social catastrophe that left us feeling truly desperate, a much needed moment of healing for our pain and anger.
