A series of events has been announced for The People’s Forest season, a year-long programme of public gigs, workshops, artworks and performances taking place as part of the Mayor’s first London Borough of Culture in Waltham Forest. Curated by friends river Kirsteen McNish and Luke Turner, the season celebrates the borough’s unique relationship to Epping Forest.

Beginning later this month, the programme will explore the deep and complex bond we have with forests through eclectic, once-in-a-lifetime events that will take place in and around Epping Forest; opening up the urban woodland to new audiences and bringing the forest into unexpected spaces.

Highlights in the season include an open call for the public to send in sounds and recordings for a 24-hour radio broadcast across the Forest landscape, a literary programme, a women-only night walk, and a club night to celebrate the forest’s connections with blurred identities and sexuality.

The spring line-up starts proceedings with highlights including Flying Solo: FRACTALS on 28 April, a dance piece staged in the forest created by dancer, lyricists and saxophonist Tyrone Isaac-Stuart. On 4 May, Direct! Action!: Protest And The Forest will explore the forest’s history of activism through a day of discussion and exploration of video archive material relating to the 1990s protests against the M11 link road. Artist Ed Webb Ingall will work with local young people to create a new work relating to contemporary activism.

On 17 May, women will be invited to reclaim the forest and join Lone Women In The Woods; a women only night walk led by artist Clare Archibald (Lone Women In Flashes Of Wilderness), exploring what happens when twilight changes into darkness and identifying how gender impacts our relationship with wooded landscapes.

More information, including about events programmed for later in the year – plus tickets – available here.