people: Ignacio Acosta

The upcoming meeting of the Geopolitics of the Forest Group will host artist and researcher Ignacio Acosta along with forest ecologist and historian Lars Östlund to discuss fires and land stewardship in the forests of Swedish Norrland. Ignacio will make a presentation based on his research focusing on “understanding Indigenous land stewardship” and “the negative impacts of the nation state disrupting traditional Indigenous ways of managing the land, where burning is one important aspect.” As expert respondent, Lars will co-moderate a follow-up conversation with Ignacio and the attending public along with group’s coordinator Clara West and chair Luis Berríos-Negrón.

Lars Östlund is Professor at SLU’s Department of Forest Ecology and Management. He is focusing on “forest history” where he works to try and understand the relationship between people and the forests from a long time perspective. https://www.slu.se/en/ew-cv/lars-ostlund/

Ignacio Acosta is an artist and researcher based at Uppsala University’s Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism, working in territories under pressure from extractive industries. He leads a FORMAS funded project ‘Indigenous perspectives on forest fires, drought and climate change: Sápmi’ based at CEMFOR, Uppsala University. He is part of Traces of Nitrate, a UK AHRC funded collaborative visual research project based at the Royal College of Arts and the University of Brighton. Please see more on Ignacio’s project on forest and fires in Sápmi at: http://ignacioacosta.com/forest-fires

More info on Ignacio’s research:

http://ignacioacosta.com/drones-drums

http://ignacioacosta.com/from-mars-to-venus