A self-organised community within the polish countryside -

Alongside the fast development of cities, digitalisation, threats of an unstable political situation and a wish for a simpler life, more and more citizens are migrating towards rural areas. The absence of agriculture is not a problem for them - the countryside is not a place for making a living, it has become a place for living. These modern nomads tend to organise themselves in communities occupying the countryside while still being connected to the city.

During the last two years, people of various backgrounds gathered at the Silent Lake in order to celebrate the experience of “untouched” nature and exchange about alternative ways of viewing the world. These Gatherings initiated a participatory thinking process pointed towards understanding the potentials and future development of the site, taking into account the current context and successive urbanisation of the countryside.

Nevertheless, the principal question remained, being: how should one approach the development of such a site? In fact, the complexities and potentials of the rural area in which the Silent Lake is embedded seemed hard to grasp during the numerous group discussions that took place during the summer visits. On these grounds I decided to focus my research on the country surrounding the Silent Lake in order to develop a methodological framework that would allow a better understanding of the landscape composing this site which would possibly result in a more sensitive development of the Silent Lake community as well as constitute an approach that could be extrapolated into similar scenarios in different sites.