The performative Silence Meal provides the larger, conceptual context for the A Million Trees to Finland initiative. Silence Meals are organized within site-specific tree installations for invited guests. These performances explore the many interrelated elements of performance, art, nature, silence, sound, and culinary concepts.
The Silence Meal is a performative dining experience hosted by the Finish artist Nina Backman. The performance invites the diner to allow a series of impressions related to senses and silence. By attending to the rituals of a meal in a way that is free of verbal distraction, the communality of silence allows for an intensity unique to the occasion. Thus, in removing the ingredient of the spoken word, guests are left free to explore a myriad of sensory experiences that can be both physical, emotional, spiritual or cultural in nature.
The first collaboration with the forest theme was the Silence Meal: in the Forest of Letters an initiative of Holger Schulze (Sound Studies Lab) that was first exhibited in CLB Berlin in 2020.
