Phoebe Boswell: A Tree Says | Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, until 5 November

Phoebe Boswell is a multimedia artist and filmmaker whose works explore themes of cultural roots, identity and experiences of belonging. Her project in Orleans House Gallery, takes over the interior and the venue’s surrounding woodlands. The show engages the audience in an intergenerational call and response, where trees become repositories of enquiry. Boswell gathered questions through an open call which became the basis of interviews with a group of nominated elders. These conversations were conducted with individuals including a freedom-loving feminist activist from Gorée, an Irish ex-nun turned actor, and the first Black woman to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. A Tree Says consists of the voices of the elders as they endeavour to articulate life. The show unfurls into an expansive and participatory installation of polyphonic soundscapes, interactive sculptures, site-responsive wall drawings, pencil studies and looped videos. Boswell invites us to explore contradictions, triumphs, personal and collective strengths, sorrows and vulnerabilities through storytelling and the radical act of listening. A Tree Says is about memory, history, place and the importance of intergenerational exchange.