Sean Thomas Tyler - Forests For Rest
20 May 2021, 6 PM (GMT+3)
Register:  mail@nidacolony.lt
 
Neringa Forest Architecture Talks focus on forest as constructed space. Throughout these series of talks forest will be highlighted as infrastructure, as an environment of ecosystems that are shaped and reliant on human actions – regulated, governed, exploited by technologies, industries and institutions.

'And hereupon the Latinists have framed the word Forest, which is compounded of Fera and Statio, a safe abode for Wild Beasts : And, in imitation of the Latinists, we have made an English word, Forest, which is compounded of For and Rest, the name being derived from the nature of the place which is privileged by the King for the Rest and Abode of the Wild Beasts.'

John Manwood. Treatise Of The Forest Laws. 1598. p. 152
 
Contemporary notions of stewardship claimed by landscape architecture and forestry institutions as well as various government schemes are utilised to rationalise policies and various practices on the grounds that it is really only understood as a kind of moral good, in this sense, it is difficult to argue against stewardship.
 
This talk explores a selection of episodes that describe situated and partial adaptations of stewardship that challenges a purely instrumental approach towards environmental management that stem from the forests of 16th century Great Britain. The non-human beings that inhabit these environments become bound within struggles of class, property rights, nation building, as well as conflicting spiritual and scientific ideology that are mobilised through their protection.
 
Where I hope to unpack what this ‘stewarding’ of environment entails, and ‘for whom and by whom’ the stewarding is being made for? Can we trace this idea of stewardship back to the pastoral and shepherd ideals? What beliefs and ways of governing emerge from these episodes and in what ways have these powers re-emerged in collective acts of resistance in order to empower marginalised others?
 
The talk will be introduced by Maroš Krivý, Associate Professor and Director of Urban Studies at the Faculty of Architecture, Estonian Academy of Arts. This talk marks a beginning for a collaboration between Preservation: Architecture, Nature and Politics, Urban Studies research studio at the Estonian Academy of Arts lead by Maroš Krivý and Neringa Forest Architecture Programme at NAC of Vilnius Academy of Arts.
 
Sean Tyler is a PhD researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts exploring the notion of stewardship and how this has played out within the discipline of Landscape Architecture. Sean also practices as a landscape/urban designer within Public Office where we engage in the built environment at the intersection of architecture, ecologies and political economy.
 
Neringa Forest Architecture Programme at large and the associated series of talks is curated by Jurga Daubaraitė, Egija Inzule and Jonas Žukauskas at NAC of Vilnius Academy of Arts.
 
NFA Talks are co-funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture.