I am the Forest, the Forest is Me

What is the purpose?

I showed the photoworks to a gallery owner, and his response was the question: “What is the purpose?” My reaction was confusion. How is this a relevant question? And within a minute, I realised that this question is a very good illustration of where we are now in human culture.

I walked into the forest and asked the tree: What is your purpose? I looked at the cloud and asked: What is your purpose? I looked into my heart and asked: What is your purpose?

The only answer I get is silence.

Still, the question is there. In the art world nowadays, it’s mainly about purpose. My friend, the gallery owner, said: “Yes, the photos are beautiful, but I don’t care. What’s their purpose?”

Shaping a piece of metal into a hollow form so that it floats on the water and can transport me across it without me getting wet. That is a clear purpose for interacting with material. A photo is many tiny points of light on a screen, or ink on paper. What is the purpose?

If you have a purpose for your artwork, you give it permission to exist; it is allowed to be. If you have no purpose, you should not exist.

I look at the moon and shower myself in its cool rays. What’s the purpose?

I have a body, and eating is a good purpose for maintaining this collection of materials, this bag full of bones and flesh.

Writing a poem about the beauty of a falling leaf—where is the purpose?

Am I allowed to exist if I deliver a clear description of acting in the process of helping mankind? And who is deciding what is beneficial? I can think of many examples of intentionally beneficial projects that have meant suffering for large numbers of people.

Or should it be efficient, explainable and understandable in language, in words, before it gets approval?

Yes, as an artist in 2026, I do have a problem. I have no answer to the question—What is the purpose?—in relation to the photo series I am the Forest, the Forest is Me.

Since I was a young child, I have felt like making things. I had no purpose! Since I was a young child, I have had no idea what to do in this world. The only thing that happens is that I start making things, with no purpose. Since I was a child, I have not understood the human world, and I wander off into nature for no reason.

I have a clear vision of what I want to say, but I have no language in words to say it. Being alone in nature, I understand it. I go into the forest with my camera and have no concept or idea of what I want to do. I only know that, for now, my body or some part of it should be in the image.

The forest is actually quite boring if you enter it from the city. Only by being in the forest for a longer time, alone and without speaking, does the forest start to show itself. The different situations and events you can see in the photos start to present themselves to me.

I have to become open and vague, and should have absolutely no purpose in making a photowork. It is about being in the forest completely on intuition.

I experience the trees as separate living entities. I feel surrounded by thousands of friends. All animals, trees, plants, mosses, fungi, etc. are part of my world, are part of me.

I am not a human being as such. I am a separate living entity, with the same material, organic structure and shapes as everything that surrounds me.

I am the Forest, the Forest is Me.

In the human world, this state of being is rare and absolutely useless when thinking about what the purpose is.

I walked into the forest and asked: What is the purpose?

You know the answer!

Rob Sweere

Terranaut: A concept developed by artist Rob Sweere, in which humans are conceived as ‘earth astronauts’: someone who moves on the earth consciously, attentively, and exploratively as if it were unknown territory. The notion emphasizes a renewed, slowed-down, and concentrated relationship with nature, in which observation and experience take center stage. In Sweere’s work, the terranaut is often associated with silent, performative nature walks and situations in which participants are taken out of their daily automatisms. Through silence, slowing down, and attention, a heightened sensitivity to space, time, and bodily presence emerges. From a philosophical perspective, the terranaut can be seen as an exercise in phenomenological attention: the world is not approached as something that is primarily used or interpreted, but as something that is explored and experienced. This aligns with broader reflections on ecological awareness and the relationship between humans and the earth. The concept invites self-examination and reorientation: how does a person move through the world when they view it not as a self-evident backdrop, but as an unknown and meaningful landscape?

text Floris van den Berg