These Rooted Bodies: Photographic Encounters with Plant Intelligence and the English oak through Material, Theory and Practice

Trees as an easily recognisable and familiar form have arguably become an emblem of the climate crisis in mainstream media over the last few decades. Often being paired with emotive phrases like “the lungs of our earth”, they are frequently positioned as our potential saviours from climate catastrophe for their ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide, one of the leading causes of global warming. Despite this, protections placed upon areas of woodland, forests, or even individual trees of cultural value are lacking or precarious, often leading to their destruction due to personal or industrial gain.

It is in these polarised cultural attitudes of trees as synonymously (de)valued, combined with emerging literature surrounding the concept of plant intelligence, that this project sits. Drawing on issues of climate change and the perceived hierarchy that places humans above plants, These Rooted Bodies investigates how deep connection between humans and trees might be brought about through photographic practice, bridging the perceived cultural divide between them. Working with a series of young and ancient oak trees in England as a series of case studies that also approach the history and biology of the oak, These Rooted Bodies examines photography and plants’ dual reliance on the “transformative qualities of light”, to explore new ways of interacting with and imaging trees.

Originally conceived as a research project about “heritage trees” and what it means to attribute ideas of heritage and preservation to plants, this multidisciplinary exhibition combines a variety of traditional and experimental photographic methods, research material, sound, and a living oak tree, to question how the oak tree is constructed in the human imagination, how it constructs itself organically, and how these ideas might offer up new ways of encountering trees, plants, and the wider natural world.