Registration Open: Taking Root – Conserving Trees and/as Heritage

Registration is open for the international conference Taking Root: Conserving Trees and/as Heritage, taking place on 29–30 October 2026 at the University of Vienna.

Organised by GloCo in partnership with the Cambridge Heritage Research Center at the University of Cambridge, the conference brings together scholars, practitioners, artists, and filmmakers from across disciplines to consider trees as living heritage at the intersection of nature, culture, memory, and politics.

Over two days, the program addresses a wide range of perspectives, from sacred trees and forests and Indigenous knowledge to climate change, colonial extraction, ecological violence, and artistic practice. Panels will explore trees and art, arboreal memory, environmental justice, more-than-human heritage, and the roles trees play in archives, monuments, museums, and contemporary art. A film screening and discussion will further broaden the programme through artistic and experimental approaches to the relationships between trees, communities, and conservation.

The conference asks how trees shape – and are shaped by – histories of conservation, identity, and belonging, and how conservation practices might account for their cultural, ecological, material, and political lives.

The conference is free to attend, but registration is required.

29–30 October 2026
SR 1, Department of Art History
Garnisongasse 13, Hof 9
University of Vienna, Austria

For further information, including the full program and paper abstracts, and to register, please visit our events page.