The Story
Behind the artworks, trails, and experiences in the forest lies a story about art, nature, and people.
Here you can read about how Deep Forest Art Land came to be, what we're working toward, and how the place continues to evolve.
Deep Forest Art Land = Family + Forest + Contemporary Art
Deep Forest Art Land brings together many of the things families look for: shared experiences, time in nature, and room for curiosity.
Here, children and adults can experience art side by side. Some works invite play and movement. Others invite conversation, wonder, and contemplation.
There isn't just one right way to walk through the forest.
Deep Forest Art Land is situated in a diverse landscape featuring coniferous forests, deciduous forests, open areas, and wetlands.
Nature is not merely a backdrop for art.
It's an active part of the experience.
Light, wind, rain, moisture, and vegetation all help shape the encounter between the artwork and the visitor.
Artists are invited to create works specifically for the site and in dialogue with the surrounding landscape.
Many works of art change over time and gradually become part of the forest.
Here, art is experienced not primarily through explanations, but through presence, the senses, and one’s own experiences.
Deep Forest Art Land isn't just a place you visit.
It is a place you move through—alongside nature, art, and one another.
How It All Began
The idea for Deep Forest Art Land originated in 2009, when visual artists René Schmidt and Søren Taaning began exploring what happens when contemporary art moves out of traditional exhibition spaces and into nature. The following year, the site opened to the public under the name Skovsnogen.
The goal was not merely to place art in the forest, but to create a place where art could be experienced in a more open, sensory, and free way.
Later, Kristina Taaning became involved in the development, and the work with children, youth, families, and learning grew to become a central part of the center’s identity.
What Deep Forest Art Land Believes In
We believe that art can open up nature.
And that nature can inspire art.
It creates spaces for experiences, conversations, and communities where people with different backgrounds can come together on equal terms. That is why we are working to ensure that Deep Forest Art Land is accessible—physically, socially, economically, and sensorially.
Anyone should be able to attend without any special prerequisites.
It's okay to learn more.
It's okay to wonder.
It's okay to play.
It's okay to be quiet.
Art, Children, and Learning
An encounter with art doesn’t have to begin in a museum. At Deep Forest Art Land, we approach art as an experience rather than a set of answers. Through school programs, family activities, workshops, and art projects, we explore how children and young people can engage with contemporary art on their own terms—not to find the right answers, but to discover new questions.
Where We Stand Today
Deep Forest Art Land has grown through artistic initiative, local involvement, volunteer efforts, grant funding, and partnerships.
Today, the site is an independent cultural institution under the jurisdiction of Herning Municipality and one of Denmark’s largest areas dedicated to permanent, site-specific contemporary art.
The forest is still evolving. New works are being added. Others are weathering and becoming part of the landscape. Nature continues its own work among them. That is why Deep Forest Art Land is not a finished story.
It's a place that's evolving.
A Forest in Transition
Every season leaves its mark.
New works are created. Trees grow.
That's why no visit to Deep Forest Art Land is ever quite the same as the last one.
We hope you'll feel like visiting the forest—and coming back again.