How Forests Think

How Forests Think is a series of participatory and community art workshops aim to give a voice to the forest through a material and imaginative expression of children; creating a condition where topics around current ecologies, indigenous heritage, and climate change can be conveyed in and through a material participatory practice. 

The activities were structured in two phases. An initial testing series was run with a primary school of children in Sibu, a small town in Borneo. We proposed the workshop, approached the school, and briefed teachers in advance. The second phase was run in Long Lamai. Here, the workshops were restructured and adapted to the needs of this indigenous community. The ethos of the methodology followed the concept of being participated, a community approach where the role of the leadership is fluid and no longer expected to lie with the researchers. In this context the local elder, Garen Jengan, identified the Penan concept of Molong as the context of the workshop.

Molong

Molong is a generational belief system that defines Penan’s complex relationship with their surrounding environment. This connection with the forest operates on different levels. It encourages and fosters a practice of caring for the forest following an ecologically sound harvesting system. Molong has evolved as a way of maintaining the forest, both for the indigenous people, animals and wildlife, and to preserve crops for future generations. This connection can also operate on a deeply personal level. Members of the Penan community can choose an element from the forest, this is called an olong, and act as its custodians. The olong can be a tree, a leaf, a river; but it must be something alive. This generational and emotional attachment to the environment, that for centuries has been integrated into Penans’ code of practice, is affected by urbanisation and currently at risk of completely disappearing. This is primarily due to a lack of adequate methodologies that can transfer this knowledge using tools that can adapt to Penan’s more modern lifestyle.

In Long Lamai we run two workshops, engaging young students with the concept of Molong. The first workshop took place in a nearby forest with a small group of children, the second one was based in a local school and with a greater number of participants. We structured the workshop activities and used Situated Learning Theory as a theoretical framework for this study. Our decision to use this theory is motivated by our belief that learning practices and knowledge transfer within the Penan community are deeply rooted in the social, cultural, and environmental context in which they are created and utilised.