The forest for the trees | 2020, 2021
An artistic nature and environmental project for children and young people with an outdoor theater trail
The students learned about nature through direct access to methods of environmental and nature conservation. This knowledge promotes effective change
instructions for everyday life and makes complex regional and global climatic
relationships understandable and discussable. At the same time, land art, nature trails, forest readings, a stick fight, human-sized earth caves and spider webs, and much more were created, which we arranged into an outdoor performance guided by the children. The children and young people learned how to act effectively in public and how to use artistic methods to raise awareness of environmental and climate protection in their communities.
A long-term research project
Children and young people are growing up in times of ecological catastrophe. They will be forced to take on the task of saving our planet. In the course of the project "Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen" (The Forest for the Trees), we worked with the "next generation" to explore the demands of a sustainable society from a socio-cultural perspective and make them tangible in a sensory way. During one school year, we conducted artistic and scientific research on the future of nature and ecology with children, mainly in the fourth grade, some of whom came from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. Weekly extracurricular meetings in cooperation with the Lessing and Hebel schools in Freiburg and their after-school care programs alternated with excursions. With environmental expert Andrea Kenk, the students examined natural phenomena and entire ecosystems. We playfully compared symbioses or growth cycles with social networks or everyday processes throughout the seasons.
Concept: Veit Arlt, Jens Burde, Andrea Kenk
Artistic direction: Veit Arlt, Jens Burde,
Director: Vanessa Valk
Nature education: Andrea Kenk
Music: Konrad Wiemann
Costumes: Liane Schmid
Educational support: Susanne Henes
The project is a collaboration with the NaturFreunde Freiburg e.V. association, the Hebel School, and the Lessingschule Freiburg (
) and was funded by the German Postcode Lottery.