Las jako park tematyczny

Abstract

Forest as a thematic park

The article examines transformations in the understanding and images of nature, and its relation with culture — beginning with sacralised wilderness as an opposition to human civilisation; through the park as a form of preserving and aesthetising wild nature, and an area of recreation and fun; to the forest as an effect of planned cultivation, profit-focused forest industry. Educational trails described in this context are considered to be a manifestation of the enlightened model of cognition, an illustration of the musealisation of forests by transforming them into thematic parks. This makes another stage in the current typical process of transforming the cultural image of nature. The forest as a thematic park forms a simulacral space where the opportunity of gaining experiences is limited to and replaced by erudite description of the world. This way, the forest ceases to play its symbolic role of representation of nature and source of sense.