Entangled Ecologies: Digital Storytelling in the Shaker Forest Landscape

FAIN: MT-284684-22

Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH 03755-1808)
Damiano Benvegnu (Project Director: June 2021 to July 2023)
John P. Bell (Project Director: July 2023 to present)
Joline Blais (Co Project Director: July 2023 to present)

Entangled Ecologies is an augmented reality application that would reveal hidden histories and relationships entangled in the 995-acre Shaker Forest, a property located in Enfield, NH. Integrating the environmental humanities with digital technologies and public outreach, this application provides a dynamic historical narrative of the socio-ecological interactions in the area and an opportunity for those engaging with the forest to connect to its rich historical and environmental legacy. Our application will use digital storytelling to highlight and interpret the signs of the complex and at times conflictual intermingling of different human and nonhuman communities in the forest. Through the encounter with augmented reality objects, users will experience the forested landscape as a series of socio-environmental narratives capable of evoking the Shaker Forest’s multi-layered histories in which humans, trees, animals, and geological forces interacted and affected one another.