“When the Tree Speaks and When My Family Told Me to Listen to the Soil” is my exploration of language, migration, and ecological memory. It centers on my evolving communication with my family, three generations shaped by different geographies and accents, yet connected through a shared sensitivity to place, plants, and care. In this project, trees become mediators of dialogue. I collect stories of specific species, London Plane, Ginkgo, Sweetgum, Zelkova, and Goldenrain,that have grown across the various cities my family has lived in, using them as common ground for intergenerational conversations. Through a series of drawings made not by hand but by wind-guided tree branches, I capture the silent gestures of trees as they respond to weather, time, and presence. These natural marks are paired with transcribed conversations about plants, forming a long scroll where human language and botanical movement coexist. In this hybrid visual-textual field, the failure of spoken clarity gives way to a deeper form of understanding, one rooted in gesture, ecology, and care.
