This chapter provides a critical overview of concepts and texts focusing on the practice of sensing trees and plants. Beginning with artist Katie Holten’s Tree Alphabet, which bridges reading and sensing, I examine the idea that humans are neurologically incapable of “seeing” plants, as proposed by Wandersee and Schussler’s concept of “plant blindness.” I also explore the various meanings of seeing and looking with respect to plants in art and photography. I compare David Abram’s call for a more “sensible” relationship with more-than-human nature in The Spell of the Sensuous (1997) with Baptiste Morizot’s recent diagnosis of a “crisis of sensibility.” This chapter presents sensing as a practice of care (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017), which can be applied beyond “wild” natural spaces. I discuss David G. Haskell’s series of sensing approaches to trees—The Forest Unseen (2012), Songs of Trees (2018), and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Tree (2021)—as examples of how this practice can be learned and implemented. Focusing on plant and tree awareness rather than combating supposed neurological deficits is a step forward in forming a connection with trees.

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Sensing

  • Solvejg Nitzke

摘要

This chapter provides a critical overview of concepts and texts focusing on the practice of sensing trees and plants. Beginning with artist Katie Holten’s Tree Alphabet, which bridges reading and sensing, I examine the idea that humans are neurologically incapable of “seeing” plants, as proposed by Wandersee and Schussler’s concept of “plant blindness.” I also explore the various meanings of seeing and looking with respect to plants in art and photography. I compare David Abram’s call for a more “sensible” relationship with more-than-human nature in The Spell of the Sensuous (1997) with Baptiste Morizot’s recent diagnosis of a “crisis of sensibility.” This chapter presents sensing as a practice of care (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017), which can be applied beyond “wild” natural spaces. I discuss David G. Haskell’s series of sensing approaches to trees—The Forest Unseen (2012), Songs of Trees (2018), and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Tree (2021)—as examples of how this practice can be learned and implemented. Focusing on plant and tree awareness rather than combating supposed neurological deficits is a step forward in forming a connection with trees.