Katie Holten is a visual artist and resistance fighter based in NYC and working in the world.
She grew up in Ireland and studied Fine Art, History of Art and Complexity at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin, Cornell University in New York and the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico.
At the root of Holten’s practice is a commitment to study the inextricable relationship between humans and the natural world. Drawing is her primary research tool in visualizing the challenges. Several years ago, recognizing a collapse of language and a looming crisis of representation as our species adapts to life in the Anthropocene, Holten created a Tree Alphabet and published the book ABOUT TREES, offering readers a language beyond the human.
Since 2014 Holten has hosted monthly salons in her home for a community of artists, scientists, writers, philosophers and engaged citizens to look at art, activism, and environmental crises in the Anthropocene. She is currently developing a Living Tree Alphabet for New York City.
In 2003, Holten represented Ireland at the 50th Venice Biennale with a solo pavilion presentation entitled Laboratorio della Vigna. Other important solo museum exhibitions include the New Orleans Museum of Art in New Orleans (2012), Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane in Dublin (2010), The Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York (2009); Villa Merkel in Esslingen (2008), Nevada Museum of Art in Reno (2008) and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2007). She has conceived major public commissions including TREE MUSEUM for New York City’s Grand Concourse (2009-10) commissioned by the NYC Parks Department, the Bronx Museum and Wave Hill.
She has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including a Fulbright Scholarship, Pollock Krasner Award, and multiple Bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland. She is a current recipient of the Arts and Humanities Residency at the NYC Urban Field Station awarded by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and the US Forest Service.
Projects
- New York City Tree AlphabetKatie Holten is creating a New York City Tree Alphabet. Each letter of the alphabet is given a corresponding tree. For example, A = Ash, B = Birch, C = Crabapple. Trees are drawn from the NYC Parks Department’s existing planting lists, as well as species being planted as a result of the changing climate. The New York City Tree Alphabet will be used as an alphabetical planting palette, allowing us to rewrite the urban landscape. New Yorkers will be invited to write (plant) words, poems, or even s
- About TreesRobert MacFarlane writes “There is no lone tree language, but a forest of tree languages.” In ABOUT TREES, Katie Holten invites us to enter some of these forests. She has created a Tree Alphabet and used it to translate a compendium of well known, loved, lost and new writing. She takes readers on a journey from ‘primeval atoms’ and cave paintings to the death of a 3,500 year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to Emerson’s language of fossil poetry,
Projects credited in
- Leaders with social heart: 100 creative changemakersCelebrating social responsibility is at the heart of what we do, so we've partnered with Squarespace – whose mission is to inspire people with creative ideas to succeed – to shine a light on 100 influential luminaries from art, technology, charity, design, business and more that are working tirelessly to make our world a better place. To highlight these organisations, we asked 10 creative changemakers to each nominate 10 people behind inspiring brands, products and movements with amazing social
Skills
- Copywriting
- Editing
- Drawing
- Art
- Curating
- Crafting