Photograph by Abigail Hadeed
Trinidadian artist, teacher and agriculturalist Mario Lewis, spends lengthy days and weeks working closely with the land of Mamoral Forest. Equipped with essential tools and provisions- not without pen and paper – Lewis works with the forest, studying and protecting its natural systems and the forest works with him.
Lewis shares with us a year-long snippet of his studio-in-forest journey through the scientific-style notations and unfiltered illustrations of The Forest Notebooks, the latest publication in the Chimurenganyana series.
Drawing insights from agronomy literature of similar terrains, Lewis experiments with cultivation and contour farming, at the same time working towards supporting the restoration of the grounds natural self-preserving cycles. The land formerly being a colonial cocoa and coffee plantation is vast with various types of soils and vegetation needing different types of support. Lewis’ jokes that he prefers to not use the overcomplicated jargon of permaculture and appreciates older knowledge systems, citing the The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka as an incredible source of information. Taking the 90-min drive out of the city, with a small amount of basic tools and a pile of books, Lewis sets up camp in different parts of the land, patiently noting according to a methodical structure what is seen, felt, changed and needed. The drawings however are a whole other thing!
Lewis chooses a pen rather than a pencil when he draws, wanting a more intuitive reflection of what was experienced that day. Illustrating the ideas, the thoughts, the creatures he might’ve encountered – all by candle light in that sort of thick, calm darkness you only feel in the absence of electricity. All of this is bound in blue print in the Forest Notebooks publication.
Published by Chimurenga in collaboration with Mario Lewis Forest Notebooks was launched as part of the Minor Cosmopolitan Intervention Conference hosted by the University of Potsdam in May and it was also presented at Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair & Festival 2025 with both events taking place at HKW.
Forest Notebooks forms part of the ‘Black Echologies Series’, a collaborative project between Chimurenga and Nyabinghi Lab, a Berlin based independent arts collective. To purchase your copy of Chimurenganyana: Forest Notebooks head to our online shop.
This article and other work by Chimurenga are produced through the kind support of our readers. Please visit our donation page to support our work.