The group was divided into two streams beforehand, and I participated in the stream titled ‘Reading the Landscape’. The stream focused on how concepts and methods from the natural sciences and other traditions of ecological observation might be both creatively and seriously engaged within the humanities, partly by partaking in a collective reading of different landscapes. In practice that might be performed by a humanist scholar taking the hand of, let’s say, a biologist in order to go out and study the selected landscape together. Focus for these ‘rubber boots’ excursions should be curiosity and critical noticing. To walk out with an open mind, without preformulated questions, is the model. We tried out these methods by spending two half-days out in the field.

The summer school also offered two highly relevant and interesting key notes by Anna Tsing and Celia Lury. Tsing talked about the suggestions for landscape studies that are presented in the recently published book Field guide to the patchy Anthropocene and Lury about her work with problem spaces. The field guide was a source of inspiration for my stream, and it, amongst other things, suggests that we treat the Anthropocene as patchy. These patches could be a parking lot or a mall, but also a plastic gyre in the ocean or a mining pit. The key is that patches emerge from field observation and that the researcher tries to understand what is happening in them and how they came to be.

I went home with home with many new ideas on how I might approach my ‘patch’ which is the nuclear power plant in Forsmark.

Text: Rebecca Öhnfeldt
Photos: Viktor Wretström and Rebecca Öhnfeldt