Join us on the International Day of Forests 21.3.2025

We invite you to join us to organise Katie Paterson’s IHME Helsinki Commission 2021 To Burn, Forest, Fire incense ceremony on the International Day of Forests 21 March 2025.

Where to pick up your own incense and instructions for holding your own incense ceremony: On the Night of Science 9 January 2025, we will be giving away hundred incense packs in Cinema Orion (Eerikinkatu 15) between 17:30 and 19:30.

In exchange for the incense pack, you will give your name and email address so that we can contact you between the date of the incense package delivery and the date of the incense ceremonies, International Day of Forests 21 March 2025.

Scents of the first and last forest as incense

Paterson’s IHME Helsinki Commission 2021 titled To Burn, Forest, Fire consists of the scent of the first-ever forest on earth and the scent of the last forest of the age of climate crisis. These scents were made into incenses and have been burned across a variety of sites around the city of Helsinki on September 1–30, 2021. The incense pack includes two incenses, instructions for the ceremony and a booklet opening the scientific background of the work.

Welcome to pick up your own pack from Cinema Orion on Thursday 9 January 2025 from 17:30 onwards and invite your family, friends and closed ones to join your private incense ceremony on the International Day of Forests in March in your chosen location. You can organise the ceremony at any time you want or simultaneously with IHME Helsinki in the morning at 10 am.

Share the moment by taking a photo or video of it and posting it in social media with hashtags #ToBurnForestFire #IntlForestDay #IHME2021 @ihmehelsinki and @studio.katie.paterson.

International Day of the Forests

The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 21, 2012, the International Day of Forests to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests. Countries are encouraged to undertake local, national and international efforts to organize activities involving forests and trees, such as tree-planting campaigns.

The organizers are the United Nations Forum on Forests and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with Governments, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and other relevant organizations in the field.

“Humanity’s well-being is inextricably linked to the health of our planet. Forests play a crucial role. Forests filter the air we breathe and the water we drink. They regulate our climate, absorbing one-third of the global greenhouse gases emitted each year. Forests provide habitat to 80 per cent of all known terrestrial species, many of which are under threat. Today, more than 1 million of the planet’s estimated 8 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction. Some 1.6 billion people depend directly on forests for food, shelter, energy, medicines and income.

Despite all that they provide, forest loss continues at an alarming rate. We continue to lose 10 million hectares of forests, an area roughly the size of Iceland, every year,” says Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres in his statement, which you can read in full here.