City Trees (May 2021)

In 2021 Gothenburg artist Mona Wallström invited me to collaborate with a text to accompany her book Träd i Stad (City Trees)

As it happened, certain trees in the city of Gothenburg itself had become monuments of meaning for me. Alongside the toromiro itself, a certain tree opposite the balcony of my studio had been an important companion to me one particularly ferocious summer.  Behind the altar of the Friluftskyrka a beech tree had taught me lessons about death and hope.

As I pondered the form of the text, a thread of inspiration arrived to me from the past. In an earlier era, I had experimented with writing as if stories to my future children, already an act of some audacity given my age and relational status. Somehow I wanted to write to another generation. So the idea of ‘One day I will tell my children: City Trees’ took shape within me, and wrote itself onto the page.

A new element in this collaboration was to participate in my work being translated into Swedish, itself a work of symbolism for me as well as practicality for a new audience.

As part of the book launch, I was asked to give a reading of the text, which, due to the limitations of the coronavirus pandemic, was broadcast on Instagram, another first.

The book, my first collaboration published in Sweden, is available to buy here.  The performance is still available to watch via Instagram.

With grateful thanks to Mona for including me in her beautiful project, and to the other collaborators for their generous and inspiring work.