Join award-winning Canadian photographer Rita Leistner and curator John Geoghegan, Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, for a conversation about The Tree Planters.
The Tree Planters is a striking photographic series documenting the gruelling and often unseen labour of professional tree planters in British Columbia. Through large-scale, painterly portraits captured in real time, Leistner explores human endurance, environmental stewardship, and Canada’s complex and evolving relationship with its forests.
Between 2016 and 2019, Leistner embedded herself with planting crews, living off-grid for months at a time in remote camps. Immersed in the physically demanding world of seasonal tree planting, she documented workers as they planted thousands of saplings each day across rugged, clear-cut terrain. Her photographs reveal both the intensity of this labour and the resilience of the planters, transforming them into luminous, almost mythic figures.
Join Leistner and Geoghegan for an engaging discussion about the making of the series, the people and landscapes at its centre, and the ideas that shaped the exhibition.
Rita Leistner: The Tree Planters is curated by John Geoghegan and organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
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