Ronald Kolb
Post-Exhibitionary Practice

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https://www.m1-hohenlockstedt.de/en/kuratieren/m1-kuratieren-202526/grafted-future/

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A Grafted Future – Planting across Generations in the Bücken Forest
Part of Art as Ecological Practice (2025–26)
Curated by Ronald Kolb

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A project by artist Camilla Berner in collaboration with forester Björn Berling

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On 13 November 2025, Camilla Berner and forester Björn Berling planted eight young trees in the Bücken forest near Hohenlockstedt. Saplings of silver fir and sycamore maple, raised in a local tree nursery, were placed directly on and within the remains of old trunks.

The experimental method began with a practical question. Could the elevated position protect young trees from deer and small rodents while the decomposing wood and remaining root structures supported their growth? Rather than clearing away the material left by an earlier generation of trees, the project treated decay as a possible infrastructure for new life.

Creating Favourable Constellations
Berling’s approach to forest management emphasises self-seeding and restrained intervention. Instead of enclosing large areas with fences or imposing a predetermined plan, human work focuses on creating favourable conditions: opening gaps in the canopy so that sunlight can reach young plants, observing self-seeded growth and regulating wildlife populations where necessary.

This form of forestry operates through coordination rather than complete control. Soil, moisture, fungi, insects, animals, weather and human decisions all affect whether a sapling can take root. The outcome cannot be guaranteed, and the timescale exceeds that of a conventional exhibition.

Each planting site was photographed and marked with GPS coordinates. This documentation established the basis for returning to the trees and observing how they develop. Photographs from the activation later entered the Winter Assembly, connecting the forest’s slow transformations to the changing exhibition at M.1.

Intergenerational Time
Forestry is inherently intergenerational. Those caring for a forest work with decisions and conditions inherited from the past while preparing an environment for people and organisms yet to come. A Grafted Future made this temporal structure visible by bringing young trees into direct contact with the remains of older ones.

The title does not promise a seamless future. Grafting is an intervention: different bodies and times are brought together in the hope that they can continue growing. Whether the eight saplings survive will become known only through patient observation.

The project therefore shifted artistic attention away from a completed object and towards an uncertain process. Its material form remained in the forest, exposed to weather and ecological relations. What entered the exhibition was a temporary record of an experiment whose most significant developments may take place years later. Regeneration appeared not as restoration of an untouched past, but as a careful negotiation between what previous interventions have left behind and what future life might require.