Feltscapes

_{^{title: Feltscapes
location: Galleri Svanen, Rånesta, Sweden
material: Woolblend and artificial fibers
project: The Forest of Assen
date: 2023}}

Soft mapping about trees, people and beetles

In Europe, forest damage caused by this bark beetle, in addition to normal storm damage and fire, is a major problem. The drought in the summer of 2018 in Sweden caused an increase in bark beetles, which affected large forests of Norway spruce.

Cora Jongsma observes and investigates the daily reality of landscape. As a mapmaker, she makes traces of cultivation visible in felt and examines how people and nature have shaped the landscape. 

Assen is an ancient city in the north of the Netherlands, where many wealthy people eventually had their homes built. Jongsma, who lives in this place, investigates the Asserbos. The five feltscapes she made there can be seen in this exhibition.

The Asserbos is a so-called star-shaped forest, with avenues that run away from a center and have the shape of a star from above. This creates sight lines and surprising walking routes. Typical for this forest are the tree plots with rabbets, dikes on which the trees stand, with ditches in between for drainage. Furthermore, empty zones are striking nowadays: not every plot is overgrown with trees.

Sometimes trees disappear from places where they were previously planted. This is often due to feeding by the Ips typographus. This small beetle lays its eggs in tunnels under the bark of coniferous trees. The small, twisted tunnels on the bark weaken the trees, causing them to collapse during the first major storm. Forest managers often cut down to prevent further spread of the beetle. This is how empty zones are created in forests.