Tree Story

Contributing author Sophie Cunningham
Edited by Charlotte Day and Melissa Ratliff
Monash University Museum of Art and Monash University Publishing (2021)

Tree Story brings together creative practices from around the world to create a ‘forest’ of ideas relating to critical environmental and sustainability issues. At its foundation – or roots – are Indigenous ways of knowing and a recognition of trees as our ancestors and family. Produced to accompany a major international group exhibition and podcast, the reader connects tree stories across time and place.

Featuring varied contributions from thirty-three exhibiting artists and projects in a fully illustrated colour section—ranging from early 1970s environmental actions to plant communications—Tree Story includes newly commissioned and republished texts from artists, activists, ecologists, scholars, curators and authors that foreground First Nations’ knowledges, reflect on the rights and agency of trees, explore notions of cultural heritage, reveal knowledge of tree networks and consider loss in times of climate emergency. Together, the diverse contributions in Tree Story pose the question: what can we learn from trees and the importance of Country?

Authors – Brook Garru Andrew, Sissy Eileen Austin, Vanessa I. Cavanagh, Madeleine Collie, Sophie Cunningham, Charlotte Day, Brian Martin, Nick Modrzewski and Suzanne Simard.

Design – Stuart Geddes and Ziga Testen.

Artists – Brook Garru Andrew (AU), Yto Barrada (FR/MA), Berdaguer & Péjus (FR), Joseph Beuys (DE), Tania Bruguera (CU), Hayley Panangka Coulthard (AU), Nici Cumpston (AU), Agnes Denes (HU/US), Yanni Florence (AU), Ceal Floyer (UK), Nicole Foreshew (AU), Henrik Håkansson (SE/DE), Beth Mbitjana Inkamala (AU), Judith Pungarta Inkamala (AU), Tim Johnson (AU), Reena Saini Kallat (IN), Peter Kennedy (AU), Olga Kisseleva (FR), Janet Laurence (AU), MAIX Reserved Forest (MY), Brian Martin (AU), Kent Morris (AU), Peter Mungkuri OAM (AU), Optronics Kinetics (AU), Uriel Orlow (CH/UK), Jill Orr (AU), Katie Paterson (UK), Ed Ruscha (US), Yasmin Smith (AU), Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (BR/ES), Stelarc (AU), Linda Tegg (AU) and The Tree School.