PostCompost – Forest Reset
2025 / 2026
Collective Artistic Research Project
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European forests are currently showing the consequences of
large-scale monocultures. Bark beetles find ideal living
conditions and are able to reproduce unhindered, while increasing
soil dryness inhibits the trees‘ defence and self-healing
processes. What remains is a dystopian landscape of dead wood,
which also marks the beginning of an ecological transition: ferns,
mosses, and lichens colonize the newly created habitats.
In the artistic research project ‘PostCompost – Forest Reset,’ we
explored the dynamics of this transformation with a group of art
students from various disciplines. During an excursion to
deforested areas in Thuringia, Germany, we formed a temporary
research collective to explore the terrain from different
perspectives and using various media such as photography, video,
sound, and photogrammetry. These investigations gave rise to
collaborative works that reveal the subtle processes of a changing
landscape.
In a public space performance, the research results are presented
on a large billboard that changes continuously through repeated
processes of overlaying. The constantly overwritten surface
mirrors the forest’s own state of transition, shaped by successive
processes of destruction and regeneration.
With Fritzi Mathilda Buhtz, Klaus Fritze, Johann Joesten, Nina
Kegel, Zakhar Komarov- Zelinskii, Katharina Langenhan, Krittaporn
Mahaweerarat, Jan Munske, Tan Oktik, Adam Schmidt, Ayca Tugran
Idea, concept, mediation: Christian Doeller, Klaus Fritze
Support: Merle Petsch, Emil Kowalczyk
