Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

This research considers how woodland areas might be understood and explored as an assemblage of organic ‘readymade’ installations. Using a series of walks through the levadas of Madeira as a case-study, the project exemplifies how green spaces can be reimagined as landscapes of surprising and puzzling aesthetic interactions. A key discovery in this experimental process observes how shards of sunlight cast through the dense canopy of the Laurisilva Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, create dramatic spot-lit illuminations on the trees, plants and shrubbery below. A photo-essay interrogates the creative potential of this optical phenomenon, revealing how the environment can almost be reimagined as a type of organic scenography. The author notes how we often read the natural world as a familiar place of mundanity and discusses the implications of a more sensory interpretation informed by playfulness and experiential interaction.