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About Trees
About Trees is an artist book by Katie Holten. It will be the first book in BDP's new series: Parapoetics - a Literature beyond the Human. Holten has created an alphabet from her tree drawings and made a new typeface called Trees. Registering a crisis of representation, About Trees considers our relationship with language, nature, information, drawing, ecology, memory, systems, and time in the Anthropocene.
Texts by Jorge Luis Borges, Inger Christensen, William Corwin, Charles Darwin, Nicole Davi, Tacita Dean, Brian Enquist, Amy Franceschini, Charles Gaines, James Gleick, Fritz Haeg, Amy Harmon, Natalie Jeremijenko, Eduardo Kohn, Elizabeth Kolbert, Irene Kopelman, Ursual K. Le Guin, Ada Lovelace, Robert Macfarlane, E.J. McAdams, Arianna Occhipinti, Katie Paterson, Thomas Princen, Pedro Reyes, Robert Sullivan, Rachel Sussman, Nicola Twilley, Gaia Vince, Aengus Woods, and others.
Texts by Jorge Luis Borges, Inger Christensen, William Corwin, Charles Darwin, Nicole Davi, Tacita Dean, Brian Enquist, Amy Franceschini, Charles Gaines, James Gleick, Fritz Haeg, Amy Harmon, Natalie Jeremijenko, Eduardo Kohn, Elizabeth Kolbert, Irene Kopelman, Ursual K. Le Guin, Ada Lovelace, Robert Macfarlane, E.J. McAdams, Arianna Occhipinti, Katie Paterson, Thomas Princen, Pedro Reyes, Robert Sullivan, Rachel Sussman, Nicola Twilley, Gaia Vince, Aengus Woods, and others.
253 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
1 person is currently reading
280 people want to read
About the author
Katie Holten
6 books38 followersKatie Holten is an artist, activist and bestselling author. Her book The Language of Trees was published in 2023.
In 2003, she represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale. She has had solo exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Nevada Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.
Her work investigates the entangled relationships between humans and the natural world. She has created Tree Alphabets, a Stone Alphabet, and a Wildflower Alphabet to share the joy she finds in her love of the more-than-human world.
Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, and frieze. She is a visiting lecturer at the New School of the Anthropocene. If she could be a tree, she would be an Oak.
In 2003, she represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale. She has had solo exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Nevada Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.
Her work investigates the entangled relationships between humans and the natural world. She has created Tree Alphabets, a Stone Alphabet, and a Wildflower Alphabet to share the joy she finds in her love of the more-than-human world.
Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, and frieze. She is a visiting lecturer at the New School of the Anthropocene. If she could be a tree, she would be an Oak.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 17, 2021
Thought-provoking implied commentary on how everything is connected--communication is rooted in language, which is rooted in comprehensible and relatable ideas such as metaphors like "rooted"; how we choose to communicate influences the world around us just as how we treat the environment affects the world; patterns in the natural world indicate facts and concepts just as the density of the "text forests" preceding each alphabetic text suggests the length and word-density of the text contained in the subsequent pages; words about trees are immortal, while trees are perishable; this book of tree-rooted communication is eco-friendly, thereby allowing readers to read these words about trees without feeling guilty for killing them.
January 10, 2017
Definitely targeted at readers with a love for trees. Holten has put together a collection of texts from 50 different authors / scientists / poets and the like. If there is a common theme beyond merely trees, it is how humans over the ages have related to, understood and communicated about trees.
December 30, 2018
An unusual, mind stretching book. Author/editor is an artist from Dublin, working in NYC. It is a book whose design, paper choice, cover choice, drawings, and text all interrelate. There are about 50 essays included -- some are several pages, some are a couple of lines, some speak directly about trees, some do not. Authors are artists, poets, authors, scientists, etc.
Which will I remember the most? Maybe the one "Against Trees" by the artist who grew up terrified of Lyme disease & ticks in Connecticut (which he associated with trees) and who also prefers digital texts to "tree books". Or maybe the ones about libraries (which are created using tree products). Or the one about Liberty Trees, specifically the famous elm on Boston Commons that the British chopped down. Or Rachel Sussman's story of the 3,500 year old bald cypress near Orlando that had its own park but was burned & destroyed.
Each story is also printed in "tree text", with each letter of the alphabet being assigned a tree equivalent. Surprisingly lovely and interesting. A cedar for a c, an elm for an e, a fir for an f, a gingko for a g . . .
Which will I remember the most? Maybe the one "Against Trees" by the artist who grew up terrified of Lyme disease & ticks in Connecticut (which he associated with trees) and who also prefers digital texts to "tree books". Or maybe the ones about libraries (which are created using tree products). Or the one about Liberty Trees, specifically the famous elm on Boston Commons that the British chopped down. Or Rachel Sussman's story of the 3,500 year old bald cypress near Orlando that had its own park but was burned & destroyed.
Each story is also printed in "tree text", with each letter of the alphabet being assigned a tree equivalent. Surprisingly lovely and interesting. A cedar for a c, an elm for an e, a fir for an f, a gingko for a g . . .
April 4, 2021
I first heard about this book when it came out and in love with the idea of the tree alphabet I got my tree tattoo from this book and then I never read it.
This year after years of carrying it from one country to another and another I finally started reading it.
It’s funny how somethings just accompany you through time, across space in a kind of dormant way.. and then one day it just springs out. If we are not paying attention we think its a sudden thing, but actually it has been brewing for a long time.
Anyhow... if you are fascinated by trees, language, and poetry like I am... read this book. 🍃💙
This year after years of carrying it from one country to another and another I finally started reading it.
It’s funny how somethings just accompany you through time, across space in a kind of dormant way.. and then one day it just springs out. If we are not paying attention we think its a sudden thing, but actually it has been brewing for a long time.
Anyhow... if you are fascinated by trees, language, and poetry like I am... read this book. 🍃💙
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July 22, 2024wood read again
February 18, 2020
One of the most beautiful and endearing books I have ever read.
Artist Katie Holten has created a forest on the pages. Bringing in writing on trees from those with the most rings (Plato) to those well matured (Le Guin, Borges) to the saplings (Andrea Bowers, Katie Paterson), this book is a magnificently interlinked series of texts, separated by Holten's own tree alphabet translating each piece into an abstract language. The texts are carefully selected, right down to Holten's own conversation with her paper supplier; each offers a different perspective on the tree as it relates to us and our world.
Artist Katie Holten has created a forest on the pages. Bringing in writing on trees from those with the most rings (Plato) to those well matured (Le Guin, Borges) to the saplings (Andrea Bowers, Katie Paterson), this book is a magnificently interlinked series of texts, separated by Holten's own tree alphabet translating each piece into an abstract language. The texts are carefully selected, right down to Holten's own conversation with her paper supplier; each offers a different perspective on the tree as it relates to us and our world.
November 21, 2020
I loved making this book! Thank you Broken Dimanche Press.
September 3, 2019
“Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.” —WD
Emoji represent the twin dreams of language: semantic certainty and creative ambiguity.
Emoji represent the twin dreams of language: semantic certainty and creative ambiguity.
December 5, 2020
Art, linguistics, semiotics, botany, environmental activism, geology, science, engineering, philosophy, history, futurism— it’s all packed into this thought-provoking book.
Highly recommended for anyone inspired by nature, or simply bored with the usual stuff promulgated across social media. Trees are the nominal running theme, but there is so much more.
I don’t recommend reading cover to cover. Instead, taking time, sifting through a few essays each week, offers many rewards in terms of reflection or inspiring deeper learning.
I learned a ton and am confident others will too.
Highly recommended for anyone inspired by nature, or simply bored with the usual stuff promulgated across social media. Trees are the nominal running theme, but there is so much more.
I don’t recommend reading cover to cover. Instead, taking time, sifting through a few essays each week, offers many rewards in terms of reflection or inspiring deeper learning.
I learned a ton and am confident others will too.
August 1, 2022
Excellent little volume of meditations on trees
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews