Episode 245: The Language of Trees

My guest this episode is artist and activist Katie Holten. Katie has just released a book called The Language of Trees, a collection of literary and scientific works by people like Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ursula le Guin, and Ross Gay. Using her Alphabet of Trees, the book is underpinned by the Katie’s art and asks us to examine our relationship with trees by pulling together wide-reaching strands and demonstrating in one place, just how connected we are to them.

Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Asian Hornets

What We Talk About 

The idea behind the Language of Trees

The Tree Alphabet

Themes behind the essays

Inspiring Tree People

About The Language of Trees

In this beautifully illustrated collection, artist Katie Holten gifts readers her visual Tree Alphabet and uses it to masterfully translate and illuminate pieces from some of the world’s most exciting writers and artists, activists and ecologists.

Holten guides us on a journey from prehistoric cave paintings and creation myths to the death of a 3,500 year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to the language of fossil poetry. In doing so, she unearths a new way of seeing the natural beauty that surrounds us and creates an urgent reminder of what could happen if we allow it to slip away.

Links

The Language of Trees by Katie Holten - Elliott & Thompson, June 2023 

www.katieholten.com

Starcroft Farm Cabins

Other episodes if you liked this one:

Plants and People

The Botanical Mind

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