ENCHANTED FOREST

What do we know about the Forest of Tronçais (Forêt de Tronçais)? The Tronçais stands out among the most famous oak groves in Europe. Its hardwood is prized for no-single-nail barrels coopered for the great wines of Bordeaux, its timber was used for the French Navy and for the spire and the oak roof of Notre-Dame de Paris in the XII century. There in Tronçais, the oldest trees grow there, the so-called monument trees: each of them is 500 to 1000 years old, holding own name and passport. Powerful druids living in absolute harmony with nature (in Proto-Indo-European means “oak-knower”) believed that ancestral souls live inside sacred oaks.

Olga’s art work strives for cooperation of modern science and indigenous lore. The sacred music performed by ethno-musicians Catherine Braslavsky и Joseph Rowe together with neo-druids medium spiritual practices, the intervention creates a dialogue between uman and the nature. The artist’s utilizes hermeneutic approaches of message visualization by means of musical instruments and vocal.

Science retreats only to take a step forward. The concept of “Ancestrofuturism” (“ancestors + futurism”) constitutes an apparent contradiction; the current epoch is conceptualized as leading humanity away from obscurantism, superstition, and various folk beliefs. The concept bears in mind the “human-plant” interaction of the native people; it is a possible blueprint of new models. A re-discovery, tradition-preserving and revitalization effort of traditional ways of working with trees indeed has direct resource-protecting role during climate change.