Let the Trees ‘Talk’: Giving Voice to Nature through an Immersive Experience

Current decision-making regarding urban design, architecture, and spatial planning often emphasizes existing power balances, which historically have excluded other humans, such as indigenous people, and nature from conversations and decision-making. The purpose of this study is to explore if and how an empathic experience could give insights into how nature can be given a voice, and, more concretely, how a group of trees on the TEC campus in Monterrey would feel about a sudden change in their direct environment. The methodology is divided into three parts. The first is the explanation of the case study and immersion of the (human) participants in the site. The second stage consists of deep listening and reproducing the imagined expressions of the trees. In the third stage, the participants return from the site, evaluate, and formulate a manifesto. The experience suggests that it is possible to inspire human beings to imagine what trees would have to say if we only imagined their language. It also shows that it is possible to gain access to a formerly hidden environment. The conclusion is that the empathic access to these formerly muted worlds, such as those of nature or socially marginalized peoples, can strengthen our understanding of, and our ability to resolve, the current environmental crisis.