Conversations under the Tree

Animals have never ceased to inhabit our imagination, thought, science and art. Our relationship with them is a story without beginning or end, made of shared daily life, feigned ignorance and shared intelligence. From the Book of Genesis to The Jungle Book, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to the totemic figures of first peoples, animals carry our dreams and our fears, our impulses and our hopes. They are the doubles we reject or idealise, the figures that connect us to what we believe we have left behind or to what we hope to become. As our relationships with them are being profoundly reshaped by ecological crises, biotechnologies and ethical demands, it has become urgent to rethink this companionship. For if it is true that animals have always surrounded us, perhaps it is time to regard them better, no longer as benevolent masters or repentant exploiters, but as partners working towards a better balance in the world.