Boreal: Slow conversations between trees and people

This is a radical green touring partnership between artist Tom Bailey – of award-winning company Mechanimal, and partners in Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark. It aims to pioneer a model of ultra-low impact ‘slow touring’ across northern Boreal forests.

Mimicking the migration of trees (passages of Boreal forest migration after the last ice age to the present day), Tom Bailey will undertake artistic micro-residencies and tree-communication workshops in rural communities in collaboration and with support from the partner venues, culminating in performances of Vigil (Mechanimal’s award-winning show that engages communities in the extinction crisis) that provoke urgent questions around climate change. By touring in this mimetic way, embedding in local ecologies, working with diverse venues, co-creating with communities and diversifying audiences, our aim is to spotlight the creative sector’s role in addressing the climate emergency while exploring links between humans, non-human others, and species extinction.