Listen to the Landscape

Listen to the Landscape (Lyt til Landskabet) is an interactive website, where you can explore stories from landscapes in transition. The site serves as inspiration for how storytelling can be used to engage different actors in co-creating the landscape.

The stories at Listen to the Landscape are curated in Central Jutland, Denmark, and are conveyed in text, audio and video. They cover community stories, life stories, legends and myths as well as landowners’, citizens’ and public sector actors’ experiences with landscape co-creation. As in real-world landscapes, the stories at the website are connected and entangled, illustrated by the cross-references between the different stories.

Video stories with English subtitles include Steppingstones to the past, Caring for nature, The white cars and Creating a vision for your area.

Listen to the Landscape is intended for municipalities and state agencies to use as an inspiration for their work involving citizen engagement, actor mapping and collaboration between different public actors. The site is also aimed at citizens who participate in collaborative processes or who are interested in listening to different voices from the landscape.

Listen to the Landscape is part of the research project Storytelling Multifunctional Land Consolidation (Lokale Landvindinger) based at the University of Copenhagen. The research project explores the role of storytelling in the co-creation of landscapes undergoing change.

The research project is led by researchers at the University of Copenhagen and implemented in collaboration with the Danish Nature Agency as well as Viborg, Randers and Mariagerfjord Municipalities. With point of departure in three case areas in the EU-financed project LIFE IP Natureman, the research project investigates how storytelling can make visible different perspectives on landscape values, uses and future functions.

Storytelling Multifunctional Land Consolidation is developing a method for using storytelling in co-creation processes within the fields of nature projects and multifunctional land consolidation. The aim of multifunctional land consolidation is to combine different wishes and requirements to the landscape, such as agriculture, recreation, nature protection, energy production and greenhouse gas reductions.

Listen to the Landscape is developed by Inge-Merete Hougaard, Freja Hegelund, Sille Skovgaard, Kathrine Dalsgaard and Stine Krøijer, Department of Anthropology, as well as Lone S. Kristensen, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen.

A huge thanks to citizens and collaboration partners who have contributed with their time and insights for the development of Listen to the Landscape.

Listen to the Landscape is financed by THE VELUX FOUNDATIONS and Crown Princess Mary Center, University of Copenhagen. Audiovisual equipment has been kindly provided by the Ethnographic Exploratory, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.