In conversation with Georges Charbonnier, the painter André Marchand famously remarked of his experience of walking in the forest: ‘I have felt many times that it was not I who was looking at the forest. On some days I have felt that the trees were looking at me...’ This session will bring together four scholars, all of whom are currently combining approaches from art and anthropology in studying the lives and times of trees, to consider the question: How do trees look at us? And how in turn do we, who have become tree-like through long immersion in the woods, see with our arboreal eyes?

Amanda Thomson is an artist who will speak about her work with ecologists, foresters and rangers in the Scottish forests of Culbin and Abernethy. She will discuss how the richness of forests can be explored through a practice that incorporates bookworks, prints, video and soundworks.