Forest Answers

Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station
University of Helsinki
2023

Alpaca, mohair, merino wool, 
recycled PET polyester,  viscose

290 x 430 cm
14.17 × 169.29 in.


Forest Answers draws a parallel between two kinds of network: the branching structures of trees and the neural diagrams of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the 19th century neuroscientist whose drawings of the nervous system look remarkably like forest systems. Research shows that trees process and transmit information through mechanisms that resemble neural networks. The work explores this resemblance — not scientifically, but as a visual and poetic proposition.

Installed permanently in the the Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station — where researchers, students, and station staff meet daily — the work is part of the Periferia exhibition, a multidisciplinary art programme within the University of Helsinki's Climate Whirl initiative.