A Tree

Plants make the world. Quite literally. They conjure soil from stone, shape landscapes, and help keep the climate in check. They provide oxygen, fuel, food, shelter, and the building blocks of civilization—while largely remaining in the background.

A Tree: A Reader on Arboreal Kinship brings that background into focus, gathering research and artistic practices that explore how humans and trees relate across radically different timescales. Some species, like pines and Japanese cypress, live up to an almost impolite 5,000 years. The reader considers questions of vegetal agency, plant knowledge, and the complex exchange between people and trees.

At heart, A Tree is an invitation: to slow down, recalibrate our sense of time, and think about trees not as scenery but as active participants in shared worlds. Its aim is to nurture dialogue, spark curiosity, and inspire new ways of practicing arboreal kinship—by learning, quite simply, to look at trees differently.