Reading Environments | Shelter: Overstory

This week we will read excerpts from Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder’s Through Vegetal Being alongside Vivian Lynn’s Asherim Drawings.

“Walking or staying in nature is never dull if we pay attention to our environment and accept being in communion with it. ... The tree that I meet when walking in the woods passes much energy on to me, whereas it is not the same with a table that is manufactured with the wood of a dead tree.” — Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder, Through Vegetal Being [two philosophical perspectives], Columbia University Press, NY, 2016 (pp.21-33; 207-212).

Excerpts are available by emailing adamartgallery@vuw.ac.nz

Reading Environments is a reading group open to all, for reading, listening and thinking together. Hosted by Su Ballard (Art History), Bonnie Etherington, and Adam Grener (English Literatures and Creative Communication), Reading Environments brings together academics, students and interested members of the public to delve into and discuss current work in the Environmental Humanities that helps us navigate the changing environmental contexts of the planet.

On the occasion of the exhibition 'Folded Memory', a special series of Reading Environments | Shelter runs across five Thursday lunchtimes pairing art works from the exhibition with selected readings.

Image: Vivian Lynn, Asherim Drawings, c.1985, pastel and gouache on paper, courtesy of the Estate of Vivian Lynn. Installation view, Folded Memory, Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Te Herenga Waka -Victoria University of Wellington, 2023. Photo: Ted Whitaker.