"Ogham is Ireland's earliest form of writing. Dating from the fourth century, it
is often affectionately called a tree alphabet. It is an archaic script using
trees for letters. In Ogham, the characters were called feda trees or nin
forking branches due to their shape. Astonishingly, this ancient alphabet was
written from the roots up -- each character sprouting from a central line, like
leaves on a stem or branches on a tree."
Artist Katie Holten seeks to decolonize language and rewild the imagination by
transforming letters into trees. Combining the ancient script Ogham with Irish
and English, her Irish Tree Alphabet transforms words into an arboreal
language of place and belonging.
