Arboreal (2024)

Filmed on location at rewilding charity Trees for Life’s Dundreggan estate and pioneering tree nursery, Glenmoriston and Glen Affric in the Scottish Highlands, Arboreal explores correlations between human and more-than-human industries and agencies in regenerating Scotland’s ancient Caledonian Pinewood forest.  

The destruction and degradation of the earth’s tree-cover and forest ecosystems is recognized as a major contributor to today’s climate emergency, and native forests are now understood to be of particular significance for biotic expansion and carbon sequestration among many other ecosystem benefits. A novel and experimental form of nature conservation, rewilding’s open-ended ‘future nature’ emphasis on ecological function and integrity over species composition preservation facilitate scaled-up and connective approaches to landscape regeneration in the Scottish Highlands, where just 1% of its ancient forest survives.

Entangling sensory and material world-making processes of the evolving forest ecosystem, the film considers tensions between the spectacular and the fragile, the pictorial iconography of the Highlands landscape and its perpetual flow of life, and the everyday activities of labour at Dundreggan’s tree nursery coeval with the often-unseen rhythms of the forest. A focus on nursery workers who propagate seed and care for young trees, embodied methods of practice and a sensory syntax underscore senses of recovery and growth.