Earthlings 2026: Playfulness
23 – 30. July 2026.
Forest University, Fruška Gora
In our wounded world, there’s a background song.
A murmuring song emerging through cracks.
The song of life that breaks through.
Of life that flows and sings to the rhythms of the Earth.
Singing connections,
Convivial seeking,
reminding of life threads
that dance through us all.
Promiscuous care
Mutually aiding
Cherishing Symbiotic web of all life.
If Earthlings we are
How do we recall
The call of our time
To come back to Earth?
In our wounded world, play has been restricted to childhood. Commodified through toys, video games and professional animators. Getthoised to the playrooms. It has been exported to increasingly diminishing leisure time, when play of professionalised players, actors or musicians can be exchanged on the market and consumed by “audiences “.
It has been tagged as “important“ only for those who are kids, who cannot yet participate fully in “serious learning“, „real life“ and politics. For all who are more than six years old, play is dismissed as frivolous and insignificant, with a clear message: „you should engage with more “serious“ stuff“.
On this year’s Earthlings we are taking play seriously!
Not to play for someone, as on a tennis court, football stadium, or in a screenplay. Not to play a societal role that is deemed important and that builds our egos. But to inhabit the tingly place of being alive together that does not perform for someone or something. The place that stays open, curious, and experimental.
This year, we invite playfulness as a quality of life that tickles the dominant sensibilities of what makes sense and what doesn’t. Playfulness as a quality that vibrates across the species and makes life experimental and wonderous. Playfulness as a quality of life that refuses to be functionalised and utilised. As a quality that fails to be commodified and put into boxes or playrooms. Playfulness as a way of subverting dominance. Playfulness as the deepest worship of life.
We invite playfulness as a possibility of asking and searching together otherwise, while being attuned to surprising answers that might arrive. Playfulness as full resonant presence that invites open hearts. Playfulness as the openness to explore, trusting the stepping into what is not yet there. Playfulness as the ability to let go of perfections and projections, allowing “goals” to melt away into depths of the present moment. Playfulness as a serious act of resisting “useful“ or “apocalyptic“ futures, and being attuned to caring, strange ways which might be possible-but-not-yet.
Come join!
by the 1st of July 2026
Šumski – the Forest University, together with Šumska1, invites you to join and ground for the third edition of Earthlings – a co-organised, collectively co-curated and co-lived explorative gathering dedicated to symbiotic, regenerative, convivial ways of relating to the Earth.
No split between teachers and participants; between those who do important brainy stuff of “learning“, those who do the creative arty stuff and those who cook, clean or care about the kids. For a week we’re there to do all these together, making a collective immersion possible.
Playfulness is impossible in exhaustion, and we’ll take it easy, leaving significant parts of the day free from any planned activities, so that each of us can find their own pace of inhabiting playfulness and explore it within more-than-human relations, as well as through diverse things we choose to do. We’ll also have time for conversations, provocations, silences and deep listening, space-related care, and group sharing. We’ll be feeling what happens when a territory cares for us with its fruits, shades, beauties, and waters, and how it feels to care back, and care within.
Application process
To apply, fill in this application form by the 1st of July 2026 – the earlier the better. We will contact you for a short conversation, and let you know if your application is accepted by the 10th of July 2026 the latest.
Further information
Accommodation arrangements
We’ll be forest camping, so prepare yourself for such experience. 🙂 We have collective outside showers, as well as spaces for tents. If you have your camping equipment (tent, sleeping bag) please indicate in the admission form and bring it with you. If not, please indicate so we make sure we have enough places to host you. For those that are afraid of tents, and would still like to join, there are several in-doors beds. If you are one of those people, please write so in the application form 🙂
Food arrangements
We’ll be cooking together plant-based, low waste, as local as possible and collectively organised food, because it is integral process of the collective learning and caring for each other. There is no “chef” in charge of providing us food, and we will have cooking teams changing on daily basis. Each participant will spend a day or two in a cooking team.
There are plant-based meals in every culture around the world, and new recipes are being explored each day. We invite you to explore your local gastronomic culture with attempt to share with us ways and tastes when your turn for cooking comes. This might mean bringing with yourself an ingredient or a spice that you might need, but also might be an improvisation of what we have locally. This is how we transform gathering around food into transcultural, sacred moments of sharing, and collectively archive the cooking process through a cookbook, which might serve as inspiration for similar gatherings.
Common waste arrangements
We’ll want to produce as little waste as possible.
We’ll practice together awareness about the waste produced, as well as wastes which should not be wasted, but can circulate further. You will be part of composting practices both from kitchen scrapes and humanure.
We’ll use dry toilets at Šumski (Forest University), which we hope you will love and pass further as a practice.
Financial arrangements
Processes at the Forest University are non-profit and experimental in terms of alternative economies, including bartering, gifts, volunteering, etc. There is no big or small funder for this event. We as FU will contribute with hosting the gathering and will also cover the cost of accommodation. We ask everyone who joins for a minimum contribution through which we will be buying food, securing there is enough water in case of draught and repairing stuff.
Recommended contribution:
The recommended contribution for 7 days is 70euro.
Pay-it-forward contribution:
The solidarity fee is for those who feel they can contribute more than the minimum recommended, because they come for more money-affluent background. This depends from your position, priviledges and willingness to contribute. What is collected will be used to fund stipend for someone who cannot afford or some future programs at the FU.
Ask for participation without financial contribution:
We want learning processes not restricted through money. If you cannot afford to contribute financially, please underline this in your application.
Travel arrangements
“How do we nurture more symbiotic, regenerative and playfull ways of relating to the web of life?” is a question to be explored not only at Šumski but during your journey, and we will be sharing and recalling the journeys when we gather. Each of you will organise, fund and explore ways to reach the FU in your own way. Ours is to say that the Earthlings do not start at Šumski, but the moment when you start heading towards us.
If you do not have to fly over oceans or deserts, we strongly encourage you to explore ways to reach us that are to the ground, so that your Earthlings experiences include your physical journey in even more layered and regenerative way. This can be by bike, by train or bus, by hitchhiking or coming with a full car, or by foot if you are for a more radically rooted experience. If you want some ideas and concepts behind other types of mobilities, check this book we have wrote a few years ago for artists and cultural workers.
For any questions, write us to: sumski.uni@gmail.com