For many people, urban forests are nature close to home. For non-humans, urban forests are home. At the same time, engagement with and access to urban forests and their countless benefits for human and nature well-being is unequal. Beyond availability and attractiveness, cultivating a sense of belonging seems to play a role in mitigating this unequal access. But what does it mean to belong in an urban forest place?

Listen closely for the stories hanging from branches, hopping through underbrush and rooting beneath your feet. A moment of collaborative forest-based storytelling, where you are invited to share with each other and with the very NightForest itself.

‘We are leaves / we are nature / we are hugging a tree’

The collaborative more-than-human place-based story ‘Remembering Gateshead Riverside Park’ explores the moments, beings and creatures we remember encountering in this urban forest in the North East of England.

“Here, now, feels not good / it's good / GOOD!!!”

The collaborative more-than-human place-based story ‘Humans, the Forest and the River’ explores a moment of urban forest time. With our bodies, personal stories, and collaborative place explorations, we investigate the more-than-human connections in and with Gateshead Riverside Park.

“feels nice / feels familiar / quiet and loud ”

The collaborative more-than-human place-based story ‘Familiar, quiet and loud’ explores a moment of urban forest time. With our bodies, personal stories, and collaborative place explorations, we investigate the more-than-human connections in and with Gateshead Riverside Park.

“I started to feel cold a bit / but not that much / it’s just enough to feel I am here and now ”

The collaborative place-based story ‘Another Moment’ explores a moment of urban forest time. With our bodies, personal stories, and collaborative place explorations, we investigate the more-than-human connections in and with Gateshead Riverside Park.

“the tree feels lucky to survive / and on their road to recovery”

The collaborative place-based story ‘A Moment’ explores a moment of urban forest time. With our bodies, personal stories, and collaborative place explorations, we investigate the more-than-human connections in and with Gateshead Riverside Park.

“I am the beginning, the end / I carry the scars of history ”

The collaborative place-based story ‘Riverside Park, here and now’ explores a moment of urban forest time. With our bodies, personal stories, and collaborative place explorations, we investigate the more-than-human connections in and with Gateshead Riverside Park.

“I am leaves, I like to dance with the wind”

The collaborative place-based story ‘Forest Tongue’ explores modes of interlingual, intercultural and intersectional belonging. With our bodies, personal stories, and collaborative place explorations, we investigate the more-than-human connections in and with Gateshead Riverside Park.

“Here, now, this place feels restored,

transformed

exposed”

This collaborative place-based storybook explores the Urban Forest of Washington D.C., with stories from delegates of the 2^nd World Forum on Urban Forests 2023.

As we explore Gateshead Riverside Park, we use our bodies to notice who and what is here. We investigate how we are connected to this place through a series of prompts. During and after each exercise, we record our responses. These become our stories of this place, here, now.

Seated under a sprawling tree, on a teal metal chair at a teal metal table on a flagstone patio, the water swirling in the glass while the sun pushes through the canopy above - this is where I am when I first meet Pigeon.

We are explorers of the urban forest of Kraków in Poland. With our bodies, we notice who and what is there, and who and what is not. Through prompts, writing, drawing, making, and sharing, we record our responses, telling the stories of this particular urban forest place.

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the Urban Forest Stories sessions

Why do autumn leaves change colour? As days shorten, and night envelopes us earlier each day, I keep finding patches of bright autumn leaves on my way. Where do these colours come from, I wonder, and what might be their purpose, I ponder.

This morning, I heard rivers streaming up and down. Not north to south, but up, towards the sky, and down, into the earth.

If leaves could talk, what stories would they tell?

What resonated, what places came forward, themes and questions from ‘Writing Beyond the Environment: Writing from the Roots’ by Emergence Magazine

I pull the handles down, simultaneously, hearing my mother’s voice in my head, warning me to be careful with the locking mechanism. I push the heavy sliding doors open with my entire body. I grip the handle at the curve closest to the door, so it doesn’t flick back up and closed, and as soon as a gap appears, I push my right shoulder in. All the way open I push them, first the door on the right and then the one on the left, tripling the living room in size, turning outside inside in.

If I’d never hear them again, I would miss all the ambient sounds that make me feel like I am home. The sounds that make me feel comfortable, at ease, like I am in a trusted place, surrounded by love and warmth and well-being.