Workshop, Forest Symposium, Orlické Mountains, Czechia
2026
As part of Pastoral Twilight: Initiatives for Rural Cultures, at symposium Grass Socialities, I led the workshop was followed by a residency at Verpéjos, Lithuania, continuing my exploration of pastoral landscapes, plants, wool and place-based forms of making. Project is exploring pastures as places of encounter, learning and collective inquiry. Pastures are among the most biodiverse places on Earth: living archives of relationships between grasses, herbs, fungi, insects, birds, sheep, goats, people, and all the others we tend to overlook.
The workshop took place during the sixth edition of the interdisciplinary Forest Symposium, held among the forests and meadows of the Orlické Mountains. The programme brought together artists, shepherds and researchers through lectures, storytelling, performances and workshops, creating space for different forms of knowledge and attention.
Together, we explored what happens when we look closely at what grows around us and allow the landscape to become our colour palette. We foraged plants and dyed wool, following the connections between place, plants, animals and making. The main plant we gathered was St. John’s wort, traditionally associated with the power of the sun. Its flowers produced unexpected, luminous shades of yellow-green.
We also created a collective colour chart from woollen yarns brought by the symposium’s lecturers, many of them shepherdesses and wool spinners. The resulting chart became a small gathering of landscapes and materials – a colour archive of the people, animals and places that came together during the symposium.
Photos by Marketa Choma
