Conversation with Trees

Janet Orlene

Janet Orlene has been a Learning Experience Designer across India for the last ten years. A National Geographic Certified Trainer (2020), she holds a Bachelor’s in Environmental Sciences (2012) and a Diploma in Experiential Education and Practice (2016).

She works with both children and adult audiences, designing highly specialised experiences for some of the top investors, entrepreneurs and artists in the world, as well as various governments and corporate think tanks. Her work brings together ecology, theatre, systems thinking and embodied learning.

In 2025, she serves as Principal Consultant at Theatre Professionals HRD, designing and facilitating corporate behavioural training programmes rooted in theatre, embodiment and experiential practice.

She is also the Founder of WildMinds (2025), an experiential outdoor learning initiative focused on active conservation, ecological literacy and play-based nature education for children.

In 2024, she was a recipient of the Grounded Imaginaries Fellowship with the University of Sydney, Australia, researching Climate Crisis, Communities and the Environment.

She is an ethnobotanical researcher who has worked with over nine tribal communities in Tamil Nadu, documenting plant knowledge, ecological memory and changing landscapes.

In 2019, she walked over 850 km of coastline across Kerala and Tamil Nadu to document the impact of the climate crisis on coastal communities. Her reports and documentation were featured by the Government of Kerala.

In 2025, she joined the Board of Directors at Upstream Ecology Foundation, contributing to long-term ecological restoration, education strategy and community engagement initiatives.

Her work sits at the intersection of research, facilitation and lived field practice, building spaces where science, story and community meet.

*Buy her coffee.*

Arun Kumar

N. Arun Kumar is a plant taxonomist and field botanist based in Bengaluru, India. He is currently pursuing doctoral research in Plant Systematics at the University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU), where his work contributes to an ongoing floristic and taxonomic assessment of Bannerghatta National Park. His research focuses on species diversity, distribution patterns, and taxonomic resolution within a peri-urban forest landscape shaped by long-term human use.

Over more than a decade of sustained fieldwork, Arun has conducted botanical surveys across the Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats, Himalayan region, and the Andaman Islands. His work includes floristic inventories, taxonomic documentation, herbarium collections, and the identification of angiosperm taxa across multiple phytogeographic zones. He maintains an active field collection practice and contributes to strengthening baseline plant documentation in ecologically and culturally significant landscapes.

His research interests centre on angiosperm taxonomy, medicinal plant diversity, and ethnobotany, with particular attention to species delimitation, morphological variation, and plant–people relationships. His field practice is supported by a substantial photographic archive of Indian flora, developed through years of systematic documentation and close observational study.

An avid birdwatcher and naturalist, Arun’s field engagements extend beyond plants, reflecting an integrated approach to landscape ecology. Alongside his research, he leads advanced plant walks and field-based learning sessions that emphasise diagnostic characters, careful observation, and ecological context, cultivating taxonomic literacy and botanical rigour among participants

Sayee Giridhar

Sayee Girdhari is a botanist and educator with a Master’s degree in Botany from Savitribai Phule Pune University. Since graduating, she has worked as a Field Botanist with the Karnataka State Biodiversity Board and as a Biodiversity Analyst with Terracon Ecotech Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai. She currently leads outreach for SeasonWatch (https://www.seasonwatch.in/), an India-wide citizen science and climate change education programme at the Nature Conservation Foundation.

Sayee is deeply passionate about connecting plants and people. She leads engaging tree walks in urban spaces for people of all ages, especially adults. These walks create a space to learn the names, ecology, and natural history of common trees, while also sharing personal, emotionally rich stories and memories associated with them. She lives by the belief that “facts rarely change opinions, but emotions do.”

As part of her work with SeasonWatch, Sayee initiated the Tree Stories blog (https://www.seasonwatch.in/blog/), which features evocative reflections and observations about people and their relationships with trees. She also encourages others to lead tree walks, creating more opportunities for people to pause, observe, and appreciate the trees we often overlook in our daily lives. Through the India Treewalks Network (https://www.seasonwatch.in/project/india-treewalks-network/), she has connected over 350 people across the country.

Committed to making botany accessible and enjoyable, Sayee designed the Basics of Tree Identification and Phenology workshop, which she conducts both online and offline multiple times a year. Since its launch in 2021, this live workshop has engaged over 1,000 participants annually.

Sayee hopes to continue exploring diverse pedagogical tools to make plants more meaningful and engaging for people. She envisions spending her life helping others truly see plants ; believing that this shift in attention can nurture more thoughtful stewards of nature.

Yash Bhandari

Formally trained as a sculptor, works with found material especially fruit shells and slow building form in spaces. This core understanding has shaped his curiosity and his sensibility towards an artistic practice.

For this project , Yash will indulge in Creative research; anchor the audio theater production; offer artistic direction; co-mentoring of students and facilitators in experience design, storytelling and sound-based practice.

With a core in Public art and socially engaged creative practice; over nine years of work through Art in Transit, collaborating with artists, community organizations, government bodies, and policymakers, experience creating large-scale public interventions and interdisciplinary projects across civic, cultural, and social contexts.

Independently scheming new worlds with Geechugalu, street art collective that explores place-based narratives and rejoices in building pride to place with strategic interventions with community and planners.