Proxy Conference: In Forest (2023) by AFSAR and DAVRA unfolds at dusk within a wooded clearing, where a small gathering forms a temporary council beneath the trees. Participants sit together in a circle, drinking tea and burning incense as daylight fades into night. Wearing masks that blur individual identity, they take turns sharing stories from different localities. The gathering adopts the structure of a conference, yet its format diverges from conventional academic or political assemblies. Instead of papers or speeches, knowledge circulates through spoken narrative, attentive listening, and collective presence.

The stories move fluidly across time and geography, across material and immaterial realities, connecting voices from different parts of Asia through fragments of memory, folklore, and speculation. Intertitles occasionally appear, offering brief contextual cues that frame the narratives without fixing their meaning. CGI shapes in the form of waves and stars, teardrops, plants and a candle float between participants, as spectral receipts of the transferal of knowledge. The soundscape shifts between quiet conversation and swelling music that sometimes rises to compete with the voices themselves. At moments, reverb distorts and amplifies speech, transforming storytelling into an atmospheric experience that heightens the emotional tone of the exchange. Through layered editing and overlapping audio, the work creates the impression that individual accounts diverge while remaining interconnected. Ghosts seek solace in elusive figures; forgotten names resurface in intimate spaces; spirits return through mineral or plant forms in acts of devotion; dreams circulate alongside matriarchal wisdom. Each tale adds another thread to a shared narrative field.

The project belongs to AFSAR’s broader series Proxy Conference, which experiments with collective gatherings as a method for weaving knowledge. For this second edition, the group collaborates with DAVRA, a collective rooted in Central Asia that practices forms of circular assembly and communal dialogue. Together they reimagine the conference not as a site of authoritative speech but as a space for alternative epistemologies to emerge. Within the forest circle, storytelling becomes both method and medium. Participants inherit and extend what might otherwise remain unspoken. Revealing hidden transcripts of memory and belief, a hand is extended to the audience, who, listening from beyond the circle, can become part of this evolving constellation of voices.