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Film-maker Salom茅 Jashi and the art of trees

Escape to a forest of arboreal art - film, music and poetry that looks, listens and even protests with trees.

In her documentary Taming the Garden, which premiered at the Sundance film festival this year, the award-winning Georgian film-maker Salom茅 Jashi captured the transplantation of trees from Georgia鈥檚 coast to a controversial new park and arboretum. She tells presenter Sophia Smith Galer about evoking conflicting feelings on film.

Music and sound artists at this year鈥檚 Helsinki Biennial are inspired by listening to trees. The 大象传媒鈥檚 Lucy Ash hears from Teemu Lehmusruusu, a Finnish artist converting the sounds of decaying trees into organ music and Finnish-British artist Hanna Tuulikki, whose soundscape and choreography blend the folklore of the past with present-day eco-anxiety.

The Jamaican poet Jason Allen Paisant has just published his debut collection Thinking with Trees, exploring identity, belonging and the right to roam. He is joined in discussion by fellow poet Craig Santos Perez, a member of the Indigenous Chamorro community, originally from the Pacific Island of Guam, who protests with trees against the climate crisis in his latest poetry collection, Habitat Threshold. They tell Sophia how they鈥檙e each reinventing nature poetry to reflect their roots and their rights.

Plus, we take a trip to the park with Dian Jen Lin, the Taiwanese fashion designer and co-founder of sustainable design studio Post Carbon Lab, who designs with trees to create carbon-capture clothing, using bacteria foraged from tree trunks.

Presenter: Sophia Smith Galer

Producer: Kirsty McQuire, Lucy Ash, Lucy Collingwood, Paul Waters

(Photo: Taming the Garden film. Credit: Salom茅 Jashi)

Available now

27 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Sat 26 Jun 2021 16:06GMT
  • Sat 26 Jun 2021 22:32GMT
  • Sun 27 Jun 2021 03:32GMT
  • Sun 27 Jun 2021 18:32GMT
  • Mon 28 Jun 2021 09:06GMT

Podcast