Group Stories from our research team

Within Branching Out, we have an aim to work in an interdisciplinary way. This requires us to work within and across the arts, humanities, and sciences to better understand and connect the social and cultural values people hold about trees as well as the more tangible, physical characteristics of trees. To do so effectively, the team must understand the value of the different methods being used outside of their own discipline but within the Branching Out research team.
 

In October 2023, the Branching Out team met in Milton Keynes. The team who attended was split into three groups, with members sharing the stories they had individually written and submitted before the meeting. You can read more about these individual stories here. 

After listening to each other’s stories, the groups chose their favourite and were asked to envision the story’s main tree or treescape in thirty- or fifty-years’ time and collaboratively author a short story. 

Questions were developed by members of WP1 to help those less familiar with storytelling to engage with the exercise effectively: 

‘What is the tree(scape)’s importance?’ 

‘Who is now the protagonist?’ 

‘What are their emotions, thoughts and memories?’ 

‘What has changed?’ 

This exercise allowed members of the research team to better understand how much can be communicated through a story.  

Similar themes and ideas appeared throughout. Two of the groups developed a story about a mulberry tree – One set in a cozy, mystical environment whilst the other featured an almost ominous, autonomous version of the famous tree. The third story focused on an ash tree and the complex relationship that trees, people and technology may have far in the future. 

All the stories about the trees indicated the belief that trees provide for people and are expected to, even far into the future. They created varied suggestions as to what trees may provide in the future: such as shelter, fruit, and companionship. They also presented an equally broad range of ideas for how those trees may supply these things: a warm room within a trunk, a near-worshiped hologram, a digitised world that seeks to mimic the past. 

Through this exercise, the Branching Out team creatively produced data that could support their own research, expand their understanding of other disciplines, and consider the future in a different way.  

Our actual group and individual stories will be published on this website, so be sure to keep an eye out!