During the months of October and November 2024, during my artist residency at the Sant Pere de Vilamajor Rectory, I made five trips to Montseny, alongside photographer José Ferrer.

On these trips, the forest has revealed itself in its autumnal splendor, as it did seven years ago.

However, there are traces of climate change in its lagoons, which are drier, as are some wooded areas.

During the field study period, we encountered the DANA (National Park of Natural Resources) in Valencia and were also subject to changes due to torrential rains in the Catalonia region. For ten days, we were unable to enter the forest.

When we were able to return to work, a video was made of us painting on a century-old beech tree in Santa Fe del Montseny.

The distinctive scent of wild boar accompanied us on our forays; their presence was a constant, as was the beauty of the highest peaks, the gentleness of the autumnal hills, and the surprise of the heather flowers.

Following these mountains and their changes sustains me in hope and the vitality of nature.

Cristina Coroleu

Montseny 2024

Forest 1:

Forest 2:

Forest 3:

Forest Action:

Paintings, Montseny (2017)
Japanese ink on rice paper.

Forests:

It is a multidisciplinary project of artists gathered by the common interest towards the families of trees that create the forests, that natural group currently in critical condition as a result of climate change.
Hundreds of thousands of hectares of trees disappear every year in our planet and deforestation is the third cause of climate change.
The observation, investigation and study in different artistic expressions and with scientific observers has begun with two forests:
One without life, in Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, 8000 hectares in the archipelago of the southern end of the Earth.
It is a lenga forest with specimens of up to more than 300 years that burned in 2008.
Another one alive, the Montseny in Catalonia, considered by scientists as the sentinel of climate change in Europe, as it contains the diversity of trees that goes from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia.

Montseny, the approach to a forest:

A forest is the question and the answer to our passage on Earth.
The root itself and the sense of rootedness of man since the beginning of time, like the stone, a piece of sky that is unabated for the common eye, a support under the feet that keeps us in a perfect balance while our life here lasts.
Entering the forest is a zig zag of uncertainty such as life and art, a pause, a silence audible as an arrow in the darkness of the night.
The knowledge that before us there was a boar, a small weightless bird on a branch, while a group of clouds passed through the blue sky.
Sinking in the wet beech leaves up to our knees is feeling the time that passes and sustains us and frees us from the space in which we live.
It is like going back to being timeless at any time.
Going up…
Between roots that keep the mountain tied to the becoming of Earth, sand and clay, stones and gravel as small as dots.
Some rock formations as immense as those of the moon that look down to the Earth.
And that corpulent and cold wind that is not afraid to kill you instantly, although it first makes you numb with autumnal beech and chestnut leaves.