Film-maker Salomé Jashi and the art of trees

In her documentary Taming the Garden, which premiered at the Sundance film festival this year, the award-winning Georgian film-maker Salomé Jashi captured the transplantation of trees from Georgia’s 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’s Helsinki Biennial are inspired by listening to trees. The BBC’s 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’re 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: Salomé Jashi)