Private Project

Drifting Woods (long)

Drifting Woods, is a filmic work that connects with the local histories of a dense forestland, two hours north of Stockholm. There has been forest in this area as long as there are records of it, and only in the last 250 years has it been used more expansively for industrial production. In Drifting Woods, the drift of the productive forest is being registered, in retracing the movements of the industrial forest, from the forest commons, through its privatization, from its use in the iron ore industry to a forestry industry. In a non-linear composition, the different stages of the plantation are brought forward, from the planting, to fabrication of saplings, the different stages of felling, into the production of paper pulp and saw wood. The work registers how the forest is recorded and continuously represented: in scientific experiments, through data collections, by botanists and in a retelling of the area’s history. The capitalization of forests is interlinked with territorialization charted through mapping technology. The film transmits histories of both local and migratory positions. The work engages with biologists to get a closer understanding of tree life and how it interconnects with the underground mycelium, in what the biologist Suzanne Simard refers to as network topologies. Drifting Woods, is also that, a network topology connecting the forest and the tales inhabiting it. Listening to the stories of this network is also hearing how the forest is told and that its future is dependent on how the stories of the forest are retold within a wider narrative.
With this work Rönicke is suggesting that even though the production of forests are threatening to make the forest into a desert altogether, other potentials are also present, in lineage with rooted time scapes of the same forest.

  • Pia Rönicke
    Director
  • Pia Rönicke
    Writer
  • Pia Rönicke
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 39 minutes 40 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 15, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    80,000 USD
  • Country of Filming:
    Denmark, Sweden
  • Language:
    Danish, English, Swedish
  • Shooting Format:
    16mm, digital, animation
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • CPH:DOX
    Copenhagen
    Denmark
    March 20, 2023
    Selection New Vision
  • Seoul International Eco Film Festival
    Seoul
    Korea, Republic of
    June 3, 2023
    the International Competition
Director Biography - Pia Rönicke

Pia Rönicke is an artist based in Copenhagen. In recent years, she has been investigating different botanical collections that show traces of colonial and geopolitical conditions. Her work is concerned with problems of space and spatial transformations. She is interested in the connection between work space and filmic space, and how we conceive historical matters in relationship to our daily activities. Rönicke often works with archives and the practice of collecting is a recurring theme in her artworks. Her artistic practice spans film, prints, sculptures, and objects, which together build narratives.

Rönicke’s work has been the subject of numerous international solo exhibitions, including Drifting Woods, Munkeruphus, Denmark, 2022, Drifting Woods, Gävle Konstcentrum, Sweden, 2021; one artist / 2 films / one week, gb agency, Paris, 2019; Word for Forest, Parallel Oaxaca, Mexico, 2018 The Cloud Document, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, 2017; The Pages of Day and Night, gb agency, Paris, 2015; Aurora, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, 2012; Facing, Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, 2009; A Usual Story from a Nameless Country, Casco Art Institute, Utrecht, 2008; Rosa’s Letters, Croy Nielsen, Berlin, 2007; The Plan Is Dictator, Lunds Konsthall, 2006; Hoardings II, Tate Modern, London, 2005; and A Place Like Any Other, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2001.

Rönicke’s work has also been featured in many group exhibitions and film festivals, including Becoming Flower, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Nice (MAMAC), 2022, We on the Rising Wave, Busan Biennale, 2022, Rencontres Internationales, Paris and Berlin, 2021, 2019; CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, 2018; FIDMarseille, 2018; The Secret Life of Plants, Casa da Cerca, Almada, Portugal; 2021, Latent City - Invisible Fields, BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts, Norway, 2021; 2019: Artistic Undressings of the Royal Seaport, Moss exhibitions, Stockholm; I slipped into my metamorphosis so quietly that no one noticed, DEN FRIE, Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; Botany Under Influence, Apexart, New York, 2016; A story within a Story, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, 2015, Human-Space-Machine, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Oslo 2014; Buildering: Misbehaving the City, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2014; Reports from New Sweden, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, 2013; NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights, Mechelen and Brussels, Belgium, 2012; Rehabilitation, WIELS, Brussels, 2012; After Architecture, Centre d'Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona, 2010; Imagine Action, Lisson Gallery, London, 2008; Elephant Cemetery, Artists Space, New York, 2007; Anachronism, ARGOS Centre for Art and Media, Brussels, 2007; GNS, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2003; and Manifesta 4, Frankfurt am Main, 2002.

Her publications include Rosa’s Letters (Mousse Publishing, 2012) and Skydokumentet (The Cloud Document) (Space Poetry, 2017).

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