The Anne Frank Initiative will welcome internationally recognized artist and environmental advocate Katie Holten to Iowa City.

Holten will tour the Literary Grove with Andy Dahl, urban forestry supervisor and campus arborist. The tour will include the planting of an oak sapling in the grove in honor of Holten. The event will conclude with a hands-on workshop in the grove led by Holten. The activity will tie into the new edition of The Language of Trees.

The event is sponsored by the Anne Frank Initiative and co-sponsored by the International Writing Program, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, Facilities Management, Pentacrest Museums, UI Center for the Book, and the Stanley Museum of Art.

For more information, visit the Anne Frank Initiative website.

About the Speaker

Katie Holten is an internationally recognized visual artist and environmental advocate whose work explores the relationships between language, ecology, and human perception. Her book The Language of Trees blends literature, visual art, and environmental thought, introducing a creative “tree alphabet” in which letters are represented by different tree species. Through essays, visual works, and contributions from writers, the project invites readers to reconsider how they read, write, and connect to the natural world while exploring trees as carriers of cultural memory and communication.