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About the project

Green Blood seeks to reconnect people with nature by exploring the land-based practices of the Forest Finns, one of Norway’s lesser-known national minorities. This research aims to understand how these practices can help reduce the pressures of modern life on nature, bringing connection with land through the body and dress.

The Forest Finns have a rich cultural heritage that emphasises harmony with nature and a spiritual connection to land. Despite historical marginalisation, their practices offer key perspectives on how land is viewed and interacted with. Green Blood adopts an interdisciplinary approach, integrating humanities, design, natural sciences, and Indigenous perspectives. It investigates how practices related to clothing and shoes influence the relationship of the body with the living land. By examining traditional Forest Finn practices, Green Blood fosters connected and reciprocal relationships between humans and land, promoting a changed approach that offers to shift ways of thinking about nature with widespread potential effects. The project also seeks to bring greater recognition and appreciation to Forest Finn culture, contributing to cultural revitalisation and social justice.

The Green Blood project brings:

  1. Increased knowledge about Forest Finn land practices;
  2. Deeper understanding of how traditional practices can help guide contemporary engagements with land, with design as a key tool;
  3. Insight into how land practices and ideas are influenced by clothing and shoes;
  4. Knowledge on utilising friluftsliv to foster land-based change;
  5. A diversity of ideas for clothing and shoes in nature contexts;
  6. A contribution to efforts for a just societal and ecological transition that elevates minority, Indigenous and ecological perspectives.

By focusing on practical, material, and embodied approaches, and  diverse knowledge traditions, Green Blood aims to inspire meaningful and lasting change in how people engage with land.

Work Packages

WP1 – Seeding

The aim of this work package is to initiate the enquiry, build the research
team and local relationships, coordinate the project.
This work commences with an opening event at the Norwgian Forest Finn Museum at Svulrya, Finnskogen, bringing together the academic and the local community.

WP2 – The pulse of the Forest Finns

The aim of this work package is to gather experiences and testimonials of Forest Finn heritage. This work is done by depositing 10 physical ‘green notebooks’ at Forest Finn cultural landmarks, guest houses, etc., to record local narratives, along with disseminating a digital version, and conducting interviews and focus groups.
The collected material will become the property of the Norwegian Forest Finn Museum after the project period.

WP3 – Methodoligical rooting

The aim of this work package is to assemble and develop research prompts and methods for research and pedagogies of place, nature and land.
The work consists of reviewing, testing and developing minimum 20 wide-ranging protocols for land-based and body and dress-related research approaches and techniques from different disciplines, starting from the recommendations of project partners.

WP4 – Designing for land responsiveness

The aim of this work package is to conduct speculative, reciprocal design experiments to explore how other ways of being, knowing, acting in and valuing land will change the artifacts, such as clothes and shoes for outdoor use.
Students at Emily Carr University and visiting international students who will undertake creative, exploratory projects, including by responding to design briefs drawing on the findings of WP1-3 and through practices of sketching and prototyping. The design experiments will be developed in conversation with Indigenous guests from the Squamish First Nation to presence non-Western perspectives and will help bridge theoretical and practical aspects of this project’s work, materialising changing ontologies and giving form to alternative ways of living

WP5 – Grounding in land

The aim of this work package is to to generate new understanding about outdoor activities and practices through activating a range of perspectives, foci and
participants. WP5 builds from all the
preceding WPs, leveraging key insights and assembling the entire project team in different configurations as we seek to apply and then test understanding over the course of three fieldtrips at Finnskogen.

WP6 – Land offerings

The aim of this work package is to create exchange, share and communicate project results and outcomes through dialogue with key communities of practice. This will be done through various events and media throughout the project period.

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