NEWS Maxim Vlasov and Jasmine Zhang have been awarded seed funding from Future Forests to conduct a pilot study on ecological pilgrimage, combining tourism research with nature conservation.
– I am a researcher and conduct practice-based research that often crosses the boundaries of disciplines and professions, and I have been mostly interested in relationships between humans and nature in different contexts. I sit at the Center for Nature Guidance at SLU, says Jasmine Zhang.
– I am a practitioner and researcher interested in cultural 'rewilding', 'degrowth' and environmental philosophy, and am at the Research Institute for Organization and Business in Sustainable Transitions (ROBUST) at Umeå University. I also work as a wilderness guide and instructor in outdoor life and wildlife, says Maxim Vlasov.
– We are a group of tourism researchers, artists and practitioners who gather around the new idea of "Ecological Pilgrimage". Moving away from the religious or colonialist connotations of pilgrimage, this idea reflects a search for more ecological tourism practices and restorative ways of living with forests, where biodiversity and human activity can coexist. In other words, we ask if and how it is possible to reimagine hiking and tourism as a form of ecological activism and restoration.
– The long-term goal is to initiate an interdisciplinary partnership that explores the potential between contemporary art, tourism research and environmental conservation. We have focused on two events: organising a pilot hike along the long UKK trail in Finland, and organising a collaborative workshop at the University of Lapland's research station in Pyhä-Luosto National Park.
Named after former Finnish president Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, the UKK trail connects North Karelia with the northeastern corner of Finnish Lapland. This almost forgotten trail runs along the border with Russia through national parks, ancient forests, production forests and clearcuts, energy infrastructures and rural communities. The trail weaves together both historical and contemporary discourses and challenges related to human relationships with the forest.
– Neal Cahoon, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lapland, walked the whole trail this summer and was joined by researchers from our group on some parts. We experimented with different ways to learn, relate to and navigate through everyday life on the trail and we collected voices from local residents, artists, activists and tourism operators who live and work along the trail.
Encountering a large clearing on the UKK trail, outside Hyrynsalmi
Image Maxim VlasovFour artists and seven researchers gathered for a one-week collaborative workshop with conceptual discussions, walks, listening and guiding exercises, creative writing and artistic production. The focus was on eco-social future visions for tourism and human-forest relations. This work culminated in an open house that attracted many participants from the university, the local community and tourists visiting the area.
Keropirtti cottage where the workshop and open house took place
Image Antti Pakkanen– Our vision is applied research that offers ecological pilgrimage and restoration as a way for modern tourists to engage with forests as they seek transformative experiences. We also see how this project can provide openings for alternative sustainable local economies and livelihoods linked to tourism, and in a way build a movement outside of industrial tourism. We also want this to include more than humans, who are also involved in outdoor life. It provides spaces to discuss the increasingly disturbed ecosystems of forest landscapes that we walk as "pilgrims", and the problematic materiality of contemporary hiking and tourism practices. We wonder if "ecological pilgrimage" can become a movement where people can start their own transformative adventures right from the front door.
