Habitats: Lecture and Talk

On the 1st of February 2024, Earthwise hosted a lecture and talk with Martin Stoltze and Sophia Callmer about making room for wild species in the garden and in the bigger landscape. From practical tricks to questions about what it does to us to have a close relationship with a teeming life and ecological processes.

Martin (b. 1966) and Sophia (b. 1972) both have a background as visual artists, educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, but for the past nine years have worked with gardens, meadows and natural grounds through their company Drakängen, based in Sweden. They are also working on their own garden full of habitats and have started the rewilding of the rest of the 6 hectares that belong to their house in eastern Scania. It is the experiences from here that we especially will hear about.

Climate change and loss of nature are global crises that call for global action. Local efforts are not enough. But nature’s processes and species have an ability to bounce back when they are allowed to. The ants build new tufts in the grass and move herb seed around. The antlion, which is a fluttering and slow flyer, spots a new patch of warm sand from afar and lays its eggs there. One day the sand is full of funnel-shaped ant traps, dug by the antlion larvae. Experiences like these create hope.