The Overstory: Richard Powers

Texta is no ordinary book club; it's for people who love art. We use fiction (mostly) to unpack the subjects, themes and emotions of art. Conversation is never colourless, and is facilitated by our brains trust from QUT Creative Industries Faculty.

Trees have long been trying to reach us. But they speak on frequencies too low for people to hear.

To coincide with our future exhibition, Ken + Julia Yonetani: Dysbiotica, we will be discussing the novel The Overstory by Richard Powers, a wondrous, exhilarating novel about nine strangers brought together by an unfolding natural catastrophe.

An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. An Air Force crewmember in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan.

The evening commences with a discussion about Ken and Julia Yonetani's art practice, followed by a beverage of your choice and generous amounts of conversation about The Overstory from the comfort of your home. Discussions will include audio descriptions of a selection of the artists' artworks and publication, which are accessible to people who are blind or with low vision.

Ken + Julia Yonetani: Dysbiotica is a postponed exhibition project at QUT Art Museum due to Covid-19

Texta is held through the year on Tuesday evenings from 6:15PM.

For any queries, contact QUT Art Museum on 07 3138 5370 or artmuseum@qut.edu.au.

Purchase this title from the QUT Bookshop