Many-Tendrilled Reaching and Writing
A workshop on creativity, plants, and the craft of writing
British-Canadian-Taiwanese author and environmental historian Jessica J. Lee will join us for this all-day colloquium, hosted by Critical Media Lab and Plant Relations Lab, as part of the CML «Rehearsing» Thread and MA Transversal Design programme. In her work, Jessica explores the entanglements between people and plants, weaving personal and familial stories with broader questions of migration, memory, and ecological change.
‘We tell as many stories as possible in a single space, in a single work, on a single page, because somewhere in the gap between them, we might find ourselves getting that little bit closer. We must reach towards the thing itself.’
— Jessica J. Lee, Notes on Narration: Species, Ecosystems, Scale Environmental Storytelling, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8EGiCeqfpM&t=17s
During the colloquium, writing is approached as a shared and relational practice. Through prompts and dialogue, participants are invited to engage with reaching and writing as ways of rehearsing kinship and solidarity with plants, place, and one another. Through ecopoetics, conversation, and cooking, we will sense, illuminate, and resist the social, ecological, and political worlds around us.
To register please email criticalmedialab.hgk@fhnw.ch with:
- Your name
- If you are connected with a programme (BA, MA, PhD, researcher, faculty) or a friend, collaborator, public etc — all are welcome
- One-sentence on why you would like to attend. For example: if you’re interested in nature writing, perhaps you loved reading Dispersals, maybe you’re curious about collective reading and writing practices, or something else entirely! We’d loved to hear some context so we can prepare for the day 🌼
Schedule
Day 1
𓇢 Reading Circle ܁ . ⊹ ₊ ܁.
Plant Relations Lab (a student-led working group of the MA Transversal Design) will host a collective reading circle ahead of the colloquium, to read and discuss the pre-reads. We encourage you to join us for the afternoon.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
Tuesday 5 May 2026
16:00 – 18:00
📍 Meeting at HGK CIVIC — if sunny, we will sit outside to read together ☀️
Day 2
𓆸 All-day colloquium with Jessica J. Lee ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁ ⟡
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
Wednesday 6 May 2026
10:00 – 17:00
📍 Meeting at HGK FoodCultureLab
10:00 – 12:00 | 🫛 Morning Session ☆
Input from Jessica and collective conversation.
12:00 – 14:00 | 🥄 Lunch ‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓐐𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅
Plant Relations Lab warmly invites you to a shared lunch at the FoodCultureLab. We will prepare rice porridge and invite you to bring something to go with it — pickles, fermented vegetables, or any small dish that pairs well.
14:00 – 17:00 | 🫚 Writing Workshop ✎﹏﹏﹏﹏
Jessica will share prompts to explore nature writing and collective writing processes and practices.
Pre-Reads
- Lee, Jessica J. Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging. Penguin Books, 2024.
Excerpts:
- Maclear, Kyo. Unearthing. Pushkin Press, 2024. 288-289.
- Powles, Nina Mingya. Small Bodies of Water. Canongate, 2021. Excerpts from chapter, ‘In the Archive of Waterfalls’.
- Lee, Jessica J., Pirmohamed, Alycia, Powles, Nina Mingya, and Pratyusha. This too is a glistening. Bitter Melon, 2024.
📑 The readings are available to download as PDF here. Some print-outs will also be available at the reading circle and workshop.
Bios
Jessica J. Lee is a British-Canadian-Taiwanese author, environmental historian, and winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature, a Banff Mountain Book Award, the Taiwan Open Book Award, and the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award. She is the author of three books of nature writing, Turning, Two Trees Make a Forest, and Dispersals, the children’s book A Garden Called Home, and co-editor of the essay collection Dog Hearted. She has a PhD in Environmental History and Aesthetics and was Writer-in-Residence at the Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology in Berlin from 2017–2018. Jessica is the founding editor of The Willowherb Review and teaches creative writing at the University of King’s College.
https://jessicajleewrites.com
https://thewillowherbreview.com
https://www.silverpress.org/products/tendrils
Plant Relations Lab is a practice space for exploring relationality with plants, soil, and digital-organic forms. It values process over product, working within soft containers that support slowness and emergence. The Transversal Design working group resists urgency and values dialogue and care as essential parts of knowledge-making.