THE WISHING TREE

Collaboration with PLAN at the University of Oslo
during the Research Open Days (Forskningsdagene,
Oslo, September 2008.

Workshop aimed at children between 4 and 12 about visioning the future. All the stories about the devastating effects of climate change can be paralyzing, and we wanted to go beyond the fright and reach out to catch glimpses of the children´s hopes and wishes for the earth. We created an environment to inspire new perspectives, with a great selection of books looking at the earth from a micro and macro view, a corner of cushions to think and read and a table of two microscopes and things to look at like leaves and bark and moss. " It is a landscape on Mars!" - one boy said while gazing at a piece of birch bark.
We also had a selection of "fly eye specs" to inspire future vision. People wrote their wishes on multi-coloured strips of cloth and tied it onto an ashtree that finally was planted in a park in Oslo by the mayor and a group of children.

http://www.iss.uio.no/forskning/prosjekter/plan/nyheter/2008-09.26.xml