Benjamin Swett is the author of Route 22 and New York City of Trees, which won the 2013 New York City Book Award for Photography. His essay collection The Picture Not Taken will be published by New York Review Books in the Fall of 2024; recent essays have appeared in Agni, Arnoldia, Salmagundi, Orion, Prism International, and Fiction magazines. He currently teaches writing at City College in Manhattan and is senior photographer for the Notion Archaeological Project in Turkey. His photographs are in private, corporate, and public collections including the Museum of the City of New York. He is the 2024 Larry Lederman Photography Fellow at the New York Botanical Garden. On Instagram he is @benjaminswettnyc.
Why Photograph Trees?
March 27, 2025
4 to 5 p.m. | Mertz Library
A Conversation Between Benjamin Swett and Eric Sanderson
Just as trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and hold it for many years in their woody tissue, so do they sequester the shared experiences of the people who live alongside them. In meaningful ways, trees carry on the collective memories of communities.
—Benjamin Swett, New York City of Trees
Trees have measurable and unquantifiable effects on their surrounding populations; they make the places we inhabit both familiar and strange at times; their presence can certainly be comforting but never ceases to be mysterious. In this talk, the 2024 Larry Lederman Photography Fellow, Benjamin Swett, will talk about why he has spent so many years of his life documenting the lives of trees in New York City. Joined in conversation by landscape ecologist, author of Mannahatta, and NYBG’s Vice President for Urban Conservation, Dr. Eric W. Sanderson, Swett will present the work he did in 2024 photographing the landscape of the New York Botanical Garden, as well as exploring the beauty of the Bronx, to show how trees are essential members of our communities.
This event is free and open to the public. It is made possible thanks to the support of Larry Lederman.
Copies of New York City of Trees and Mannahatta will be available for purchase.
RSVP
About the Speakers
Eric W. Sanderson, Ph.D., is the inaugural Vice President of Urban Conservation at the New York Botanical Garden. He is the author of the best-selling Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City (Abrams, 2009) and three other books about biodiversity loss and climate change. He is an optimist, because of his work as a historian, conservation biologist, and urbanist. Sanderson earned a Ph.D. in Ecology (1998) and a B.A.S. in English and Biochemistry (1989) from the University of California, Davis.
Location Mertz Library Reading Room
Location Mertz Library Reading Room