Ollie Olanipekun is Carving Out a New Nature for Us All
New Nature is bandaging our wounded connection to the great outdoors –– in the case where this connection doesn’t exist at all, it’s giving us the tools to build it.
Ollie Olanipekun wants you to rethink what it means to be a “nature person.” The multi-disciplinary creative who doubles as a founder and triples as an adept bird-watcher recently launched his next initiative –– New Nature — an open invitation (a bird call if you will) to a refreshed way of thinking, and a redefining of ‘outdoorsy’ to include everyone. It’s a huge undertaking, but not a daunting one for Olanipekun.
The 39-year-old is no novice when it comes to connecting people to the great outdoors. In 2020, during a notoriously indoorsy year, he launched the birdwatching collective Flock Together, a tight-knit community for POC individuals to indulge in the endless joys that nature has to offer. After launching Flock Together and witnessing its rapid rise, and the growing popularity of outdoor groups in general, Olanipekun became curious about this new wave of nature enthusiasts he was encountering, what compelled them to spend their time outside, and what had kept them from doing so previously.
What he found was that the guiding principles of outdoorsmanship were defined long ago by the white guys of the leisure class who had the means, and the access. They were the ones creating the clubs, buying the land, designing the clothes, and honing the skills. This exclusivity in the outdoor space alienated many avid nature enthusiasts, who assumed that a relationship with nature was not applicable to them. This is where New Nature enters the conversation.
“New Nature is about speaking to these new audiences in new ways,” Olanipekun explains, a feat they confidently achieve by borrowing learnings from other communities, like the streetwear scene, and its legacy of nonconformity, community, and forums without hierarchy, remaining a vast inspiration.
Building on Flock Together, New Nature aims to rewrite the dominant narrative that enjoying nature is only for a certain kind of person, with a certain amount of free time, and a certain amount of motivation. Because it’s these ideas that keep so many of us from experiencing the great outdoors.
“Everyone’s connection to nature is different, and that’s the beauty of it,” Olanipekun tells Highsnobiety. “No rights, no wrongs. It’s the idea that nature is open to interpretation, and however you perceive, explore, or connect to it is valid, meaningful, and important.”
On paper, the general concept might not seem novel. Outdoor groups have been around for generations –– The American Alpine Club, The Mountaineers, and The Explorers Club.
The thing about these clubs is that they primarily cater to a clientele that consider themselves dedicated or even expert-level nature lovers. If you want to partake, it is assumed you must take week-long treks, own expensive gear, be willing to take risks, and possess sharply honed skills.
New Nature loudly throws these assumptions out the window, rewriting the so-called credentials needed to be an outdoorsy person. What if being outdoors means taking a hike in the city? What if your reason for going isn’t to achieve anything but just to feel good? For New Nature, that’s enough.
The realization came as an “uh-huh” moment for Olanipekun: Other players in the space neglected the fact that our relationships with nature are individualized, and so, New Nature found its place in the world as an answer to a problem we didn’t even realize we had.
“I learned that even though there are many shared values that bring us into nature, it’s also deeply personal, and people have their own unique experiences, understandings, and motivations.”
Olanipekun has always held an affinity for the outdoors. His childhood called for a brief stint in the Cub Scouts (he got kicked out after a year), an experience at the time he hated but now credits as the source of his confidence and comfort in green spaces. Years later, when Olanipekun was working as Creative Director of SUPERIMPOSE, a creative studio he founded, nature proved to not only be his greatest inspiration, but also his solace; where his hectic mind could rest, settle, and gain much-needed perspective. “The reasons why I go outdoors, why I love being in nature, and why I love birdwatching have always been clear to me,” he says.
Once Olanipekun put two-and-two together, he knew it was time to make his inspiration, nature, central to his career, too. For him, that meant bringing it to the people in his life who didn’t feel the same connection, as well as addressing for himself the reasons why that may be.
One of the limits we’re bound to is the belief that nature is the opposite of culture; separate entities at odds with one another. Most of us would think of nature as just trees, rocks, and animals, and culture as something born in cities, certainly not green spaces, as Olanipekun points out. But New Nature doesn’t subscribe to this belief, instead, it aims to flip this perception, promoting the idea that we are nature, and nature is us, which means engaging with nature happens wherever we go, and in whatever we do.
The same can be said with creativity and nature, the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. By thinking they are, we’re doing ourselves a disservice. For Flock Together, the team took an activity like bird watching and used creativity, and a community-first approach, to present it in a way that garnered mass participation organically. Olanipekun believes “The mere expansiveness of nature, allows it to be a source and site of creativity,” a necessary reminder that creator block can simply be cured by a day spent outside.
When asked why the outdoor community needs something of New Nature’s caliber, Olanipekun's answer is simple, “Everyone should feel connected to nature, and at the moment, a lot of people don’t.” Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the liberty of taking off work, going off the grid, and trekking through Kathmandu, which is why New Nature might just be the remedy. And it doesn’t mean throwing out our phones, either. “It would be easy for me to say put your phone down and go for a walk, but I don’t subscribe to that narrative,” says Olanipekun. Instead, he’s more interested in finding ways we can use technology to encourage more engagement in the space (Flock Together’s Instagram has nearly 25k followers), a sensibly realistic way to look at things.
“On the surface, this could be the type of tree or species of bird you’ve never seen before, but it’s the internal discovery that I find most transformative. It’s one of the most important relationships in my life,” he shares when talking about his own intimate relationship with nature.
It’s safe to say Olanipekun is an esteemed provocateur and New Nature is his weapon of choice. Whether you’re a city slicker who’s flirting with the idea of more green time, or a semi-professional alpine hiker who spends their weekends traversing rugged terrain –– the message remains the same: nature is yours for the taking, and New Nature is for you.
Talk’s all good but it’s just the beginning. New Nature is starting to come to life across the globe, so make sure you stay in the loop here.
