TALE OF A TREE HUMAN
The legend of vide and the whispering forest
This work is an exploration of how legends and mythology can create long-term family ties to the land and nonhuman beings built on compassion. The tree human Vide is given form in a semi-permanent public sculpture, and was born out of a dialogue with biologists and residents of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Östra Vätterbranterna, as part of the project Nature Takes Over by Österängens Konsthall.
Vide is a human who according to legend was transformed into a tree to be able to speak the language of the forest. Vide lived along Lake Vättern, in what is today called the East Vättern Scarp Landscape Biosphere Reserve, classified by the UN as an experimental area to find a new relationship with nature. This area is very varied, where deciduous forests that have been undisturbed for 6000 years are mixed in a mosaic landscape of small farms, meadows, and mountain slopes, which provides a rich flora and fauna.
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Illustrated by Vivianna Maria Stanislavska, the story of Vide is told in a children's booklet. Originally in Swedish.
It is said that Vide met a visent, a type of european bison that grazed the sunlit slopes of Lake Vättern before the arrival of humans and created a savannah-like landscape with high biodiversity. The visent went extinct in Sweden in the 11th century, and it’s role in the ecosystem was replaced by domesticated animals, driven by humans.
From the visent, Vide was given a seed containing the language of the forest, and started to hear wishes whispering in the wind. In the middle of Österängen, at the southern tip of Lake Vättern, Vide realizes that Vide is the forest and chooses to give up their humanity, take root and become a tree. A sacrifice that opens a portal across species boundaries. Here you can still meet Vide, connect your feet and listen to the forest through the network of fungal mycelium and roots that connect the plants underground.
Illustrated by Vivianna Maria Stanislavska
