APP ROACH
#1
With the first of our approach we decided to engage visitors in an emotional experience, changing the way they visit the forest. We tried to break the tradition of the memorial through the participation and involvement of the visitor. The goal of the first approach is create a dynamic process, open and interactive, involving different users. This approach is closely connected with the historical reality of what happened in the Forest and with the unidentified people who were killed there. With the obliteration of identity these people are suffering a denial of memory. Our project was to give a new identity to these unknown and unidentified persons and the visitors had to be the main actors in the process. Visitors should have metaphorically adopted the unidentified people, giving them stories and features, making them real. Fragments of life, portraits (faces, hands, details...), imaginary families, or biographies both drawn and written. In this way unknown people give life to other unknown people. All the obtained materials were gathered on some light structures in the Forest and left to atmospheric agents. They would have deteriorated following the natural course of time but it would have been integrated with other memories and other portraits. Nature would have taken part in the memory, creating a natural stratification. Visitors leave traces of themselves and contribute to create a collective memory. This project considered some secondary developments. The sketches and the stories could be collected for an exhibition or for some workshops in schools or competitions. The strength of this project was the direct involvement of the visitors and the possible rielaborations but it was closely connected with the historical facts.
APP ROAC H Our approach has evolved into a less pragmatic way. We have maintained the connection with the emotional space of the visitor and with his involvement but we have overlook the tangible link with historical events. Developing this project, we have adopted a sort of “archaeological� point of view. Our aim was, in fact, add a new layer to the forest for bring people to the Forest for a new reasons. This new layer consist in a re-use of the place, without forgetting his past. We had decided to propose an use for the community, overlapping contemporary stories on the old ones. The new vocation of the Forest had to maintain a slight but significative connection with the past. The most appropriate function, for us, was a place with a spread library. This brings visitors to re-appropriating the Forest and wondering why we chose that place and leads them towards a spontaneous consciousness raising.
The connection with the events happened there should be almost hidden: the number of the books could corresponds with the one of the people buried there, or the nationality of the books's writer could represent the prisioners one. Books should not be related to the events as the Falstad Center already functions has an archive. The strength of this project was the complete detachment from the concept of memorial and the addition of a new layer in the landscape. A good aspect is, also, the new way to experience the Forest, bringing visitors to reflect on why the particular location. But this approach could detach from the emotional aspects and the subtle connection with historical events may not be perceived.
APP ROAC H With the third approach, we have tried to deepen the emotional aspect and to stimulate the perceptions of visitors. To do this we have worked on our experience in the Forest and on the different sensations which has raised. Spending time in the forest has changed our awareness of it, it brought out in us the desire to share our investigation and experiences with visitors. We have supported the multiple identities of the forest interacting with it.
#2
#3
To do this we decided to work on the different ways of perceiving reality, for example working with the dilatation of the space through different tools as mirrors or screens, horizontally or vertically, to disorient the visitors or with the use of light to emphasize only some obliged point of view through the forest.